


If You Like Making Love At Midnight

by Daisyflo, HarpiaHarpyja, SpaceWaffleHouseTM



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A Love Letter to Papa John’s Hawaiian Pizza, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pizza Place, Ben Is The Worst At Bedroom Talk, Ben is Scott Fuckin Moir, Birthday Sex, Birthday Smut, Crack Treated Seriously, Cunnilingus, Cunnilingus on a countertop covered in pineapple kitsch, Declarations of Love In the Shower, Dopheld the Pizza Man, Elevators, Endorsed by Rian Johnson & JJ Abrams, F/M, Female Presenting Pinenipple, Fineapple, First Dates, First Time, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Ice Skating, Ice Skating for Dummies, Juice Me Like One of Your French Girls, Kitchen Sex, Loss of Virginity, Love In the Time of Flesh-Eating Enzymes, Love at First Sight, Meet-Cute, Morning After, Oral Sex, Pineapple Smut, Pineapples, Porn with Feelings, Pro-Hawaiian Pizza Propaganda, Rey's Pussy Tastes Like Pineapple Fanta, Sex With Juice, Sexual Humor, Shameless Smut, Showers, Singing while inside of someone, Slight Pineapple Kink, Smut, This Was Suppose to Be a One Shot, Vaginal Sex, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey, a slight abuse of Foreigner’s I Wanna Know What Love Is, elevator kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-05 17:30:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16815235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisyflo/pseuds/Daisyflo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWaffleHouseTM/pseuds/SpaceWaffleHouseTM
Summary: Ben has a routine: every Friday he goes down to the Papa John’s at the end of his street, orders a Hawaiian pizza for himself and no one else, and retreats to his apartment in peace. At least, he does until the night his routine becomes shattered as someone else tries to steal his pizza, and maybe a few other things along the way . . .





	1. What Love Is

**Author's Note:**

> None of us are entirely sure how A) we decided to do this, and B) it went from being a proposed 2K cracky PWP one-shot to a near-20K thing with chapters and actual feelings (though still more or less PWP). It may just be the power of pineapple pizza, uniting us all.
> 
> Without further ado, please enjoy this cracky tribute to Reylo, Hawaiian pizza, Foreigner, and making love at midnight . . .

Ben was, to put it simply, one lonely ass motherfucker. He lived by himself and had a routine—albeit not a perfect one—that he followed to a goddamn tee every week. Well, at least, he had a routine on Fridays. Other than that, all he did was go to work and file his taxes just like every other citizen. 

But Fridays were special. On Fridays Ben went out to the Papa John’s at the corner of his street and some other one with a name he couldn’t pronounce. He thought it might be Italian—maybe fucking Welsh for all he knew. Either way, he didn’t give a shit to learn it. 

Once he was at said Papa John’s he always ordered the same thing, a large Hawaiian with extra pineapples, and he always went home and ate it by himself while watching Netflix. Now, most nights he didn’t finish the pizza in one go, but there had been one time he had—it hadn’t gone well, he’d been bent over his toilet for the next hour after—and he didn’t care to repeat it after that. So Friday’s pizza also became Saturday’s leftovers, and those two days of the week became the only ones that didn’t absolutely _suck_. 

This night was different, though. When he came in out of the cold and walked into the warmth of the restaurant—if it could even be called that—there was someone else in the lobby, despite the fact that it was now eleven P.M. Apparently he was no longer the only depressed pizza addicted asshole in the city. 

The new stranger was sitting in those little chairs they put out for the people waiting on their pizza, and she had her chin placed casually in her hands as her feet drummed out the beat of the song that played in the background. He thought faintly that it sounded like Foreigner’s _I Want To Know What Love Is_ , but he couldn’t quite be sure over the noise of the pizza place. Still, he took in the stranger as the song passed by his attention; she was dressed not at all unlike him, but her sweatpants were a light, neutral green compared to his black ones, her sweater was white, and she appeared to have either really good skin, or she’d dotted on some makeup to cover the bags under her eyes. Her hair was pulled back into a unique three-bun style that oddly enough looked good on her when it had no fucking right to, and her hazel eyes watched him wearily as he approached the counter. 

Ben gave the woman the typical awkward smile people give strangers when they accidentally make eye contact with them, then he approached the counter and quietly placed his order once an employee appeared behind the register. Once he paid, he walked over to the chairs off to the side where the woman sat and placed himself about three chairs down from her, wanting to avoid any sort of interaction with her. His Friday nights were his nights to just be completely alone. The only interaction he was supposed to have was with the employee behind the counter. No one else. 

Mercifully, it seemed the woman didn’t want to interact with him either, and she kept to herself for the near twenty minutes that the two of them waited for their pizzas. But that was about where their fortune ended. 

The radio station in the Papa John’s, it seemed, was the sort to play the same three songs over and over again, so by the time twenty minutes had passed, that same Foreigner song was playing all over again, and his head nearly slammed into the glass window behind him in frustration. The woman snickered as his head met it gently, and his eyes closed in a clear expression of exasperation. 

He sincerely hoped she wouldn’t take that as an invitation to talk to him. 

She didn’t get the chance, though. Not even five seconds later, the employee behind the counter announced that a large Hawaiian was ready, and both of them jumped to their feet, and made their way toward the counter. Ben didn’t notice that she’d moved though until their hands landed on the box at the same time; then he looked at her, meeting her bewildered eyes with his as he raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean, what am _I_ doing?” she asked, her very British accent hitting him unexpectedly. Then she pointed to him, her fingertips narrowly missing his chest. “What are _you_ doing, prick? This is _mine_.”

Ben scoffed. “This pizza, it belongs to me,” he replied. “I ordered it. Twenty minutes ago. You were there.”

“Large Hawaiian? Pineapples and ham? I think that’s _mine_ you absolute ass,” she growled. She tightened her grip on the box and shifted it toward her. “So let go of it.”

“What?” 

As a rule, during Ben’s traditional Friday-night Netflix marathons, he automatically vetoed any and all “films” that fell into certain categories, not the least of which included romantic comedies. He knew the sort. Hallmark stuff: Contrived meet cutes. Cookie-cutter characters. The moment when the two romantic leads—usually a stoic man with a heart of gold and a tragic past, and an overworked professional woman who just needed to let her hair down and fall in love and maybe pop out a few babies or adopt a rescue dog—had their fated first encounter. The lighting would soften, and everyone else in the room would seem to blur into the background, and the overused, inoffensive pop song would begin to swell.

Bullshit, all of it. 

Except that he could swear, for about half a second, he thought he might be experiencing _that kind of moment_. The fucking music was certainly swelling—Foreigner, again somehow (Was the playlist stuck on a loop?), crooning about wanting to know what love was. Well, Ben could have been wrong, but he thought, just maybe, he knew what love was. Love was a fourteen-inch round of dough, melted cheese, sliced ham, and extra pineapple chunks, packed into a box, piping hot . . . and _her_.

Whoever she was. A paragon of good taste. A beacon of— 

“Hey? Asshole?” She snapped her fingers in his face and gave the box a rough jerk with her other hand. Ben realized he was still holding on to it by one edge, but barely. Her look was one of someone contemplating murder. Though she also had rather attractive freckles. “My pizza? Let go.”

“Ahhh . . .” The unfortunate closing-shift employee cast a look of bored annoyance between them from behind the counter, possibly wondering if he was going to have to call the cops. It would probably put some excitement into his evening. “Look, whatever the problem is, the second Hawaiian’s gonna be up in a minute. You both ordered the same thing.” He jutted his chin at the woman. “She was first, though.”

She threw a smug look at Ben, then snatched the box from his hands. This was not love. This was pure humiliation.

“ _Thank_ you . . .” She squinted and leaned over the counter a little, peering at the cashier’s nametag. “Do . . . pheld?”

“My pleasure,” Dopheld said, sounding by all accounts as if his pleasure was far from involved in whatever was happening here tonight.

She turned her steely gaze on Ben. “And thank _you_.” With that, she turned and marched out, prize in hand, sparing him not so much as a scowl. 

Ben’s pizza did indeed appear no less than a minute later, and Dopheld the Cashier handed it over to him with the care one usually applied to explosives in spy movies, maybe still thinking of calling the cops just for the hell of it. Rather than give him time to come to that conclusion, Ben hightailed it out into the cold. He was annoyed when he realized he had forgotten to zip his jacket. Now he would have to endure the air stabbing through the porous knit of his sweater for the entirety of the admittedly short walk back due to lack of available hands.

He buzzed himself in, steam escaping from the vents in the box as he began to cut through the lobby to the elevator. Usually he took the stairs—it was eight floors, which wasn’t bad, and he liked the brief exercise—but he was in a mood tonight and wanted to enjoy his pizza as soon as humanly possible. He had a season of _BoJack_ to finish, for God’s sake.

He was halfway across the room when the sound of one of the lobby chairs shrieking on the linoleum as someone moved it without properly lifting it off the floor distracted him from his current conundrum: beer, or the rather healthier seltzer?

Ben glared at the offending party—and nearly dropped his pizza in shock. It was her. The Hawaiian, as he was now thinking of her, for lack of better terminology. She noticed him and seemed to be having a similar moment, though her frown may simply have been because he’d forgotten to stop glaring.

“Are you . . . _stalking_ me because of the pizza thing?” he demanded. “You got your food, what’s your problem?”

She scoffed. “Oh, yeah, that’s it exactly. I decided to follow you home and end you with a bloody pizza cutter for daring to presume my food belonged to you. I’m definitely that sort of psychopath.” She held up a set of car keys, from which dangled the very same sort of fob he used to access the building. “ _I live here_!”

 _No fucking way_. 

Shit, had he said that out loud? No. Good.

“Oh,” he said. Not great, but probably better at swearing at her; though she seemed to have no qualms about it herself. Ben shook his head. “Sorry. Of course you’re not— Shit.”

“I’m not shit?” she asked as she dropped down into the chair she’d been dragging. She had set it up next to one of the cheapish half-moon coffee tables that sparsely populated the lobby, on which sat her own pizza box, lid already popped, napkins stacked neatly beside it. She snorted once, and then he realized she was laughing. “The fuck’s wrong with you?”

He would have answered that question, but he doubted either of them had that much time. And it seemed almost as if she had already forgotten he was there. She only had eyes for the pizza now, and was taking an enormous bite out of her first slice, cheese stretching comically as she pulled away to chew. After another moment, she glanced up at him and narrowed her eyes.

“What?” she mumbled through a mouthful of mozzarella and fruit.

“Do you—” he began, then stopped himself. God, he was being a creep. _Why_ did this matter so much all of a sudden? Ben took a deep breath and a few steps toward the chairs. “Do you mind if I join you?”

She considered for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

It struck him that she might well mean that literally, and that she could probably manage it for him if he did anything that caused further offense . . . but next thing he knew he’d put his pizza down beside hers, and pulled up a chair of his own, and was wondering whether it would be too risky to ask her if he could borrow some napkins.

Probably. 

“I’m Ben,” he said instead. “By the way.”

“Rey.” 

He was shocked when she offered her name so readily, because until that moment he was pretty sure she was already trying to devise a way to get him to leave her alone. But then again, she _had_ laughed, even if he hadn’t actually said anything funny to her in the span of their short acquaintance.

“Good to know. Now I can stop thinking of you as ‘The Hawaiian’.”

Rey smirked, her mouth full again. The slice she’d been working on was already reduced to the crust. Surreptitiously, he observed as she cast a speculative look over it, then scarfed it down in a few bites. God, she wasn’t a crust-waster. It may have been too early to say, but he was going to think it: Rey the Hawaiian was the perfect woman.

Shockingly, he was not divested of that presumption as they continued to eat in the lobby, indulging at first in the usual awful small-talk, then moving on to actually interesting conversation. 

When he asked her why she was eating in the lobby if she lived here, she said she liked eating in the lobby on Friday nights because it was a good way to people watch. That was . . . weird. But charming. She ordinarily did it earlier in the evening, but she’d lost track of time tonight setting up her new bed, which had finally been delivered after several post delays that had required her to sleep on her lumpy futon. As for why he had never noticed her here before, Rey had just moved to the city from London a month go.

Which led to him asking if she’d seen much of the city yet, and her telling him that she was making her way all right but was happy for recommendations, now that she knew he at least had impeccable taste in pizza, and that was probably the moment Ben knew he was completely and utterly lost for her. That had never happened before. He . . . didn’t hate it.

That sort of magic apparently also meant that time passed at quadruple speed, because Ben felt as if he’d only been sitting there ten minutes before half his pizza was gone (and three-quarters of hers, holy shit, she was a beast), and the napkin pile reduced to a heap of crumpled, grease-covered paper, and his beverage dilemma moot because Rey had shared her six-pack of Bud Light with him. They chatted on as they closed up their leftovers and shuffled toward the elevator, and they were still talking as it began its slow ascent.

“What floor are you on?” she asked as the number ‘2’ lit up overhead. 

“Eight. I usually take the stairs.”

As the elevator gave its usual, but still very alarming, second-floor groan and wobble, he remembered the other reason he usually took the steps: less chance of plummeting to his death. Though two floors probably wouldn’t kill him. 

Rey beamed, cheeks dimpling. Her smile was radiant. Ben felt a flutter in his stomach; he’d only eaten half the pizza, so he knew it wasn’t a repeat of that one bad night. 

“Oh.” She made a little ‘ _hmmm_ ’ sound that seemed to mean something. “Flattering of you to join me then.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, something like that. You?”

“Pardon?”

“What floor . . .?”

“Ah! Six.”

“Hmm. Good number. Six.” The number ‘3’ lit up. This was the slowest elevator on the planet, and for once Ben thought it could be slower and he wouldn’t mind.

She shifted the box in her hands and shuffled from foot to foot. “Good number indeed. So’s eight.” Rey looked at him pointedly, like she was expecting something. 

“Yep.”

And then she looked disappointed. They were passing the fourth floor. 

“Two to go . . .” she said lightly. She stuffed her hand into her purse. “Those numbers.”

Was she okay? “Uh.”

“Okay, Christ, I’m trying to asking you for your number, but I guess that’s not what I’m doing at all, and now you probably think I’m, like, Alan fucking Turing or something.”

“Alan . . . Turing?”

“Fuck.” Rey shook her head violently, her cheeks went pink, and she pulled her hand from her purse and brandished her phone at him. “Can I have your number? Or give you mine, if that’s less weird? Or did I just totally bollocks this up?”

Ben laughed nervously, catching on far too late and feeling like an idiot for it. But he was relieved, too. Because he’d been thinking of it since his second slice, and couldn’t work up the gall to do it. And that, ladies and gentleman, was why he was, mere days before his thirtieth birthday, still very much a virgin. 

“Yes,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. “You can have my number. Or give me yours. Or both. Whatever.” 

“Oh God, great. Cool. I mean. Jesus. I just. I like you. I think.” Rey issued a nervous giggle and waved her hand. “I’m sorry, I swear I’m not usually this much of a space case.”

He smirked and passed her his phone, and she passed him hers, and as they entered their numbers, he found himself thinking that he wouldn’t mind one bit if she was.


	2. Toss Me In the Air Like a Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The adventure continues! 
> 
> Thank you to all readers (pro- and anti-pineapple pizza alike), commenters, subscribers, and lurkers - the response to this has been hilarious and very gratifying.

In fact, he kept thinking about her for the whole night, as well as the two days after until Sunday evening, when his phone buzzed against the counter and caused him to drop the frying pan and his dinner. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know who could be texting him. Only three numbers were registered in his contact list: his mom’s, Papa John’s, and now Rey’s.

An amused smile made its way to his lips as he read the message lighting up both his screen and his heart.

 _Elevator in ten._

Soon followed by— 

_Bring a warm jacket._

She would be the death of him.

Of course, he didn’t question her request. He didn’t reply either, but exactly eight minutes later, he was in the elevator, not even caring about whether or not he’d left the stove on. His place could always burn; this would give him a reason to visit Rey’s. Maybe even stay for a night or two. Or forever. Before he could begin to wonder what their children would look like, the elevator opened on a now familiar face that immediately sent his heart to his feet.

“You’re early,” Rey commented as she stepped inside.

“So are you,” Ben pointed out with a smile he couldn’t repress.

Returning the smile, Rey brushed all the buttons with the back of her hand, causing Ben to gulp as he followed her movement with his eyes. He didn’t know people could have beautiful fingers, yet here he was, staring at her knuckles, wondering how she could be so perfect. Even engulfed in her winter jacket, she was still the most stunning being he’d seen in ages. Wrapped up in a white scarf, her head seemed insanely small, only her pink lips standing out.

“I hope you don’t miss the stairs too much,” she added as her back met the wall with a muffled noise.

“The stairs?” Ben repeated, blinking twice in hope of bringing his attention back to her face rather than just her lips.

“Yeah, the stairs. You said you liked taking the stairs.”

“I did,” Ben approved absentmindedly.

A few seconds passed, during which the elevator started carrying them to their next stop, which appeared to be the fifth floor.

“You pushed all the buttons?” Ben asked after a brief glance to the panel.

“I figured we might need a little more . . . time,” Rey explained with a knowing look. He didn’t exactly understand what she meant, but then again, who was he to judge her? He’d always hated winter, and he wasn’t against the idea of staying inside for a few more minutes before the inevitable dive into the cold.

“Where are we going?” he asked as the doors opened on the empty lobby. He couldn’t help but notice it still smelled a little bit of pizza, and the thought drew another smile to his lips.

Ahead of him, Rey was already walking to the door, her joyous strides making her buns bounce against her head. “Ice-skating. Ever done it?”

“Once or twice,” Ben murmured as he followed her through the heavy glass door. _Liar_ , once again.

Of course, it didn’t take long for Rey to realize how good he actually was. He’d barely landed his two feet on the ring when a ‘ _flop_!’ echoed behind him, followed by a dry “ _Shit_!” and a series of another flops as Rey tried in vain to get back on her skates.

“Here,” Ben murmured with an amused smile as he went back to her, offering a hand for help.

“Are you fucking laughing right now?”

Doing his best not to rule in her favor, he bit his lip and shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Of course you would,” she retorted as she grabbed his hand. “Oh, your glove is really sof—”

The word died on her lips, quickly replaced by another “ _Shit_!” as her hand slipped through his, sending her back on the ice. This time, Ben couldn’t prevent the chuckle from escaping his mouth.

“Now you’re laughing!” Rey said in an accusatory voice, pointing at him from the ground.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Ben hastened to say. “Sorry, I’ll take that off.”

Making sure he wasn’t in the way of the other fifty people who’d had the idea of ice-skating on a Sunday night, he fumbled with his other gloved hand, mentally cursing his mother for giving him such tight gloves. After a few seconds, he surrendered and brought his right hand to his mouth. Careful not to bite himself, he trapped the tip of the index finger between his teeth and pulled it until a cold breeze caressed his hand. He didn’t take his eyes off Rey as he stuffed the damn glove in his pocket, and even less as her hand brushed his.

A shiver swept over Ben, which had nothing to do with the fresh air. Everything, everyone around them seemed to disappear, leaving him with nothing but those hazel eyes staring back at him, perfectly underlined by the trail of freckles he’d noticed two days ago. Nothing but her gaze on him, her soft skin against his and something tickling him in his abdomen as he realized his fingers had instinctively closed on hers.

“Thanks,” Rey murmured as he pulled her back on her feet.

Slightly too close, he realized as he noticed her scent: vanilla, and a touch of something else—something fruity. Forgetting how to actually articulate a simple “you’re welcome,” Ben gave her a timid smile and shrugged as he skated backwards, not once looking away from her. It could’ve been cool, like something out of these romantic comedies he hated so much: him progressing to the center of the ring, his eyes on Rey as she made her way to him and fell just a few steps away from him, just enough for him to catch her and for their eyes to meet again, leading to a tender and then passionate—

“Hey, wait for me!”

She was, indeed, trying to reach him, but nothing like the scenario he’d just pictured. She was literally _walking_ to him, looking like a penguin that had just discovered it had feet.

“Try sliding?” he suggested with a raised eyebrow. Keeping her clumsy pace, Rey scoffed, her arms dangerously wagging and threatening to knock a few kids out. Not really enthusiastic about the idea of spending their first date at the hospital, Ben reached her in a few precise strides and aligned their legs, beckoning her to follow his movements. “I think you need a teacher.”

“I thought you’d only been here once or twice,” she murmured sheepishly as she began to go forward.

“It’s true,” Ben assured as he followed her carefully. “I used to go to another one when I was a kid.”

“So you lied!”

“Technically, I didn’t.”

After a few minutes, Rey managed to control her movements and had stopped falling. She’d been drawing circles around him for a while now, way more confident than during her first steps. So confident that she apparently felt like stopping right in front of Ben, causing him to swallow nervously at the proximity.

“So, you know any figure?” she asked with a teasing smile.

 _No_. “Yes.”

“Great!” she exclaimed with that radiant smile. “Show me!”

Not exactly sure about how to get away with it without making them both fall on the ice in the middle of a very, _very_ crowded ring, Ben considered her. He wouldn’t have any difficulty lifting her—but he had a few doubts about her ability to remain stable and motionless.

“Come on, throw me in the air like a pizza!” Rey exclaimed with a giggle.

With that laugh, she could’ve asked him to murder their janitor and he would’ve agreed. Not that there was anything wrong with Mr. San Tekka; the man always kept his packages safe and had helped him many times when he’d lost his keys. Nothing wrong with the man—Rey was just way more worth it.

Guided by instinct and stupidity, Ben leaned down just enough to slip an arm under Rey’s knees while the other grabbed her back, saving her from another regrettable fall. Surprised, she let out a screech and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding onto him as if her life depended on it. After a second, the fear on her face vanished, making way to amusement. Following his drumming heart, Ben tightened his grasp on Rey and rotated himself, drawing another screech out of her.

“Are you Scott fuckin’ Moir?!”

Ben looked at her a little puzzled. “Am I who?” he asked as they came out of the spin and her feet reunited with the ground. 

She shook her head. “Never mind, I just . . .” She paused then, and not for the first time he realized just how close they were. He had yet to completely unwrap his arms from around Rey’s body, and she was still flush against him, making full body contact as her palms rested on his chest. “He’s a . . . skater . . .” she finished awkwardly a few seconds later. 

His eyes remained unintentionally glued to her lips as they stood there on the ice, the world in motion around them as the two of them stood completely still. Without thinking, Ben tightened his grip on her, and he began to tilt his head as he bent down to start closing the gap between them. Rey’s breathing shook as she began to tremble in his arms, and suddenly he was filled with anxiety. 

The last time he’d kissed anyone had been when he was in college and someone had suggested they play spin the bottle. And that had been nearly eight years ago. Since then he’d been happily alone and single and had not kissed anyone whatsoever, even on the cheek. But now here he was, standing in front of Rey, holding her in his arms, his heart hammering in his chest as he prepared to kiss her. Would he be any good at it? Would he completely suck and she’d never want to talk to him again? 

He didn’t get the chance to find out. In that moment, Rey made up his mind for him as he watched her tongue dart out, wetting her bottom lip before she suddenly leapt up on the tips of her skates, miraculously maintaining her balance as she tugged on the fabric of his shirt and pulled his lips down to meet hers. The initial collision of their lips was a little clumsy, almost awkward, but Ben’s quickly parted to make room for Rey’s, and soon they melted into the kiss. 

All of his doubts about whether or not he’d be any good at it melted away as he brought a hand up to caress the base of her skull, and he almost smiled as her tongue swept along the edge of his lip before gaining access to the interior of his mouth, exploring him as she brought her hands up to weave themselves in his hair. His inexperience meant he hadn’t quite learned what sort of things he liked in a kiss—or _otherwise_ —but he was quickly discovering that he liked the feeling of Rey’s hands in his hair as his tongue met hers. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he thought Rey tasted like pineapples, and he couldn’t get enough of the feeling of her lips pressed against his. If he were being honest, he would be perfectly content to just stand there on the ice kissing her forever. 

But the reality was, they were still in public, and there were at least fifty other people drifting about on the ice around them. Throats began to clear, and he slowly pulled himself away from Rey to find that the skaters who slid past them were now giving them glares—some were even covering their children’s eyes. Ben almost rolled his eyes that people reacted in such a way to a very PG-13 kiss, but still he knew they were right. If this was to continue, they’d need to take it . . . elsewhere. 

He turned back to Rey, then he lowered his voice. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked, surprising himself with his own forwardness. 

Relief flooded her eyes as she looked up at him and quickly nodded. “Yes, absolutely, I thought you’d never ask!”

Ben laughed as he pulled away from her slightly, then he held out his hand to her and waited for her to take it before the two of them slowly made their way off of the rink. Time couldn’t have gone by more slowly as they undid the laces of their skates and replaced them with their winter boots before they returned them to the rental desk. They then hauled ass from the rink, and as they walked at a fast pace back to their apartment building, he made a call to the Papa John’s, ordering two large Hawaiians to be sent there. 

“Your place or mine?” Ben asked once he hung up with the Papa John’s employee, who’d been surprised to find that he was ordering two instead of his usual one, and that he was ordering on a Sunday instead of a Friday. “Cause I could go with either.”

A sly grin slowly grew on Rey’s face, and she squeezed his hand a little more tightly. “I’m thinking mine. I have a feeling you’ll like my . . . decor . . . there’s a bit of a theme there.”

“Oh?” he asked, finding himself thoroughly intrigued by her statement. “What does _that_ mean?”

She simply gave him a wink. “You’ll see,” she said, then they continued their walk into the lobby of their building. 

Twenty minutes later they had two boxes of Hawaiian pizza held firmly in one of Ben’s arms while the other was wrapped around Rey’s waist as he kissed her against the wall of the elevator. The intoxicating smell of the pizza combined with the pineapple taste of her mouth drove him absolutely insane as his hips pinned hers against the rear of the lift. She moaned into his mouth, nearly making him drop the pizzas as the noise made him wonder exactly where this night was heading. His inexperience rang again as an alarming bell in the back of his head, but he ignored it in favor of losing himself to the feeling of Rey’s hands in his hair. 

The elevator doors opened on her floor all too soon, but they still didn’t fully break apart even as they stumbled out of the car. If their neighbors were lurking or walking in the hallway at all, Ben didn’t notice as he kept sneaking in little kisses with Rey on their journey toward her apartment. He couldn’t even be sure if they were going the right way as they kept stopping every five seconds to resume the moment they’d started on the ice rink half an hour ago, and with the rather sizeable erection that was starting to tent his jeans he found he didn’t care. 

Eventually, Rey did break away from him, causing him to groan as she reached into her pocket for her keys, her fingers fumbling awkwardly for ten unbearable seconds until she finally found them, and unlocked her door at an illegally fast speed. She then reached for the fabric of his shirt and dragged him roughly inside, nearly making him drop the damn pizzas again as she led him into her kitchen. Once she had him inside, she stole the pizzas from his hands and placed them upon the kitchen counter next to a lone pineapple that stood almost as a decoration rather than a source of food before she moved back toward him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and for a moment he thought she was going to kiss him again, but then she gave him another stupid grin. “So, what do you think?”

“I think you’re beautiful,” he said, his teasing tone making her already red cheeks flush further as she pulled back from him a little. 

“I meant about my apartment,” she told him. “The decor . . . notice anything interesting?”

Ben blinked at her a few times, then he pulled back to take in the apartment, and suddenly he understood what she meant. Everything was covered in pineapples. Many apartments had themes, the renters frequently putting their own personal touches on them while they stayed there, but this one was completely different from that. 

The wallpaper was a pretty turquoise and aqua green color that provided the backdrop for the stripes of pineapples that ran up and down its vast expanse all around the living room and kitchen. The coasters on her living room table had more of the fruit printed on them, and on the tiles of her kitchen counter, he could see even more of them. Somehow, she’d even managed to get paper towels with the little spiky fruit printed on them, and her refrigerator magnets? All pineapples. 

It was almost overwhelming, and yet it was the most magnificent thing Ben had ever seen. He’d only known Rey for two days, but the sight of her well-decorated apartment alone was enough for him to want to drop down on one knee right then and there. Despite their less-than-nice beginnings, she was truly the perfect woman. 

“This is . . .” He laughed a little, running one of his own hands through his hair and feeling a twinge of disappointment that it didn’t feel the same as when she did it. “Wow, this is fine fucking art, Rey.”

“Thank you, it cost me way too much money to do, but when you love something . . .” she said, slowly inching her way toward him again. “You do whatever you can to show it.”

“All I’ve done is get Hawaiian pizzas every Friday,” Ben said softly, feeling like his Hawaiian obsession was tame in comparison to Rey’s fully decked-out apartment. He had absolutely nothing on her. His love for pineapples had been kept largely on the down low, contained to plentiful containers of Dole fruit and the weekly trips to Papa John’s. She’d truly gone above and beyond with hers. 

“That’s still perfect,” she told him, then she wrapped her arms around his neck again, and sighed. “Now, shall we feast?”

Was that an innuendo? Was she actually expecting them to unbox the pizzas, grab some plates, and have dinner? Or was she inviting him to . . . 

The urge to drop to a knee returned in full force. Though this time he found himself thinking two knees might be better than one, and only after he’d lifted her and set her on top of the kitchen counter and gotten her out of her jeans and— 

He felt heat rising to his face. Jesus, he needed to get ahold of himself. And his cock. Because if Rey was just thinking of having pizza right now—which was the _logical_ conclusion—it might be hard for either of them to enjoy it much with the evidence of his mounting arousal on fairly obvious display. He cleared his throat and looked down into her face.

“Should I get some plates?” His hands were groping her ass. His hands were groping her ass, and he was asking her about plates. It occurred to Ben that he was probably sending mixed signals.

Her expression faltered—that look in her eyes that even he knew now was pure lust dimmed, and God he was a fucking idiot—and she bit her lip, loosening her arms around his neck a little. She stepped back and bumped against the counter.

“Oh. Um. Well. Shit. D’you—” Rey turned her face away and appeared to be debating something, then looked back at him and said, “Look. I should mention . . .” She huffed a laugh, or a sigh, and quivered against him. He realized he was pinning her to the counter, his hips pressed to hers, and she could absolutely feel how hard he was. He moved to give her some space; she didn’t seem to care, though she did glance down and go a bit pink. “I don’t usually . . . Actually. I’ve _never_ done anything like this before.”

“Gone home with someone after a first date?” 

Well, at least there was that. She was out of her element, a little bit anyway, if not as much as he was. There was no way someone like her had been alone for as long as he had been, but it was nice to think she was making some sort of exception for him—that she saw something special between them, if only for one night. 

“Yeah, me too.” He was still a sparking ball of nerves with a hard-on to end all hard-ons, but slightly less so. “Uh. Me neither.” 

Whatever. It wasn’t a lie. He’d never gone home with a first date before. He’d also just . . . never done anything at all that involved getting naked with another human being and mashing his genitals into theirs. And if _that_ was how he was going to go on thinking of it, it was no fucking surprise he hadn’t.

But then he started to feel a little weird about not saying anything. It was going to be obvious, sooner or later. He should warn her, at least, that she was maybe about to consider having sex with someone whose experience was limited to what he’d seen in his very sporadic visits to Pornhub and a brief phase that involved raiding his mother’s not-very-well-hidden collection of historical erotica.

“So, listen,” he began, but she had pulled him closer and kissed him again, and her hands were digging into his shoulders like she was afraid to let him go. It drove him temporarily beyond the use of words, and he swallowed an involuntary moan.

“I mean”—she nipped at his throat, a hand sneaking under the hem of his sweater, then giggled—“I mean, I’ve _really_ never done anything like this before. Like. Been with anyone. At all.”

“You’ve . . . never . . .?”

“—had sex with anyone, yeah.” She moved her hands to his hips and bit her lip, thumbs circling nervously as she peered up into his face. “Is that a problem?”

“No. _No_.” He laughed, just a short burst of it, his shoulders shrugging sharply once. Because what a fucking _relief_. Here he’d been expecting to have to make the uncomfortable confession himself and maybe face her judgment or disappointment, and suddenly it didn’t matter at all. “That’s . . . that’s so not a problem. Neither have I.”

Rey’s apprehension seemed to wash away in an instant. Her features lit up in the smile he remembered melting for earlier in the night—though now it was so far resulting in more of an insistent urge to have her naked and writhing under his touch. “Seriously? _You_? But you’re—” She waved a hand up and down.

“I’d love to stand here and discuss the reasons why I’m still a virgin on the eve of my thirtieth birthday,” he blurted, immediately regretting how much he’d probably just overshared but not enough to stop him from babbling further. “But . . . Rey, I like you so much, and you’re . . . gorgeous, and funny, and as far as I can tell you have perfect taste in pizza and home decor, at least, and I really, _really_ want to . . .”

His hands had, at some point, returned to her ass, but now they were sliding forward over her hips, one toying with the button of her jeans as the other slid lower still, fingers pressing up along her inner thigh.

Her eyebrows rose and let out a low, shaky breath against his neck. She stepped nearer and pressed her hips forward just enough to force his hand along the seam over her crotch. “Want to what, birthday boy?”

Fuck her senseless until sunrise. Get his mouth on every inch of her body. Know what she tasted like, if she was as sweet as he imagined. Hear what it sounded like to have her screaming his name. Make her come so hard she’d still be feeling it tomorrow night. 

Maybe he was overestimating his own abilities.

First things first. Ben pressed her backward into the counter again, and Rey issued a hoarse little ‘ _oof_!’ as he brought his open mouth to hers and returned to fumbling with her jeans closure. By the time he got her zipper down she had tugged his sweater halfway up his back, so he stepped back to finish the job as she immediately began unbuttoning the button-down he’d worn beneath it. He felt her mouth hot against the center of his chest as soon as she got the shirt open enough, like she’d been waiting half the night to do this. She probably had been, and that thought sent a new throb of desire shuddering through him to every extremity.

“What about the pizzas?” The hum of her voice over his skin made him shiver. “They’re gonna get cold . . .”

She was clearly just having him on. Ben smirked and teased a few fingers inside the waistband of her underwear. “I like cold pizza.”

That was without a doubt the least sexy thing either of them could have said in that moment, or in any moment, but Rey only gave a hum of delight and tossed his shirt to the floor somewhere behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Ben and Rey make sweet sweet love? Or will they end the night where they started—two strange, lonely, pizza-eating virgins? Is _everything_ Rey owns covered in pineapples? 
> 
> Find out in Chapter Three . . . _coming soon_!


	3. The Virgin Pornstar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh man three-quarters through—thanks again to all who have been following this!

A handful of increasingly heated minutes later, his rather tame fantasy of barely a half hour before was coalescing before his eyes: Rey stripped to her bra and panties (they were a matched set, pineapple print, and by then he was in no way surprised, but his mouth had gone dry anyway at the sight of her), her face flushed and lips swollen from the ferocity of their kisses, her breath coming in short, pleasured gasps as he leaned over her to pin her to the counter and drag a trail of open kisses down her chest.

“Tell me if any of this isn’t okay,” he murmured. It seemed like the right thing to do when he had no idea what she liked or wouldn’t like, when all of this was as new to her as it was to him, when he was still fighting the fear that she might change her mind.

“Anything you do to me with that mouth of yours is okay.” Rey let out a high-pitched laugh that quavered into a whimper as his teeth scraped the lace cup of her bra, over the little pineapple applique that covered her nipple. Her nails tickled their way behind his ear and into his hair, where she wound her fingers and tugged until he moaned quietly. “Your fucking lips shouldn’t be legal.”

He tried to stop himself from snorting a laugh against her, but it was a lost cause, even as she dragged her heel up the back of his leg, kneading into his calf muscle through the denim. His one regret, so far, was not getting his jeans off sooner. The tightness of them over his groin was increasingly unacceptable, though not enough yet for him to tear himself away from Rey. Her heel pressed at him again, her arms wrapping tight behind his neck as she gave a sporadic thrust of her hips against his belly. He realized she was trying to leverage herself. 

He nipped one last time at her breast, then kissed her hard on the mouth as he hitched his arms behind her knees and lifted her in one clean movement onto the countertop. 

_Anything you do to me with that mouth of yours_.

That covered a lot of ground. Most immediately, though, Ben only had one thing in mind, and he had no idea how it was going to go, if he was going to fuck it up completely and ruin oral sex for her for the foreseeable future, but he was willing to take that chance.

“Rey . . .” He cupped the back of her head in one hand as she tipped it back to let him suck at her throat. “I want to go down on you now.”

Her response was another grind of her crotch against his and the sensation of her nails trailing down his ribs and then, like an afterthought, barely more than a whisper in his ear, “Oh God, that would be . . .”

“I want to taste you. So fucking much.” 

His free hand tripped down her stomach, faltered at her waistband, then dipped between her legs, over the thin, damp stretch of lace. He hoped she didn’t notice the way his fingers trembled slightly as he began to work her over, carefully increasing the pressure, still with that thin barrier between his hand and her pussy—she must have known he was nervous, but it was one thing for her to understand that as a logical conclusion and another for him to make it obvious. But if he was, it didn’t seem to be killing the mood. 

“D’you want that?” 

He brushed his nose against hers and kissed her again, more gently as he slipped his hand inside the front of her underwear. He felt her radiating heat and a fine, downy layer of pubic hair and gingerly pressed two fingers through her folds as she angled her hips to encourage him. He’d known what to expect, but he hadn’t expected her to be _that_ wet already, just from some kissing and light fingering. He wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or not, but he knew his cock was straining almost painfully inside his jeans. He stole a look at Rey’s face and saw her eyes fluttering shut, her mouth parted with a barely audible sigh.

“Fuck . . .” She squirmed against his fingers and opened her legs further, even as she urged him to pull back and use his mouth instead. “Do it, Ben.” 

He stroked her a few more times, enjoying the way just a few touches could make her twitch, circled her clit with the pads of his fingers and coated them with her, then withdrew as she bit her lip and took in a sharp breath. 

“You wanna do it right here?” he asked, stepping back to get out of his jeans. He wasn’t presumptuous enough to think Rey wouldn’t mind him whipping his cock out in the middle of her kitchen—it was their first date, after all, surely some boundaries still existed—but his boxers were far less restrictive and the denim was officially killing him. 

She was seated crookedly on her counter, legs akimbo, chest rising and falling in quick little jumps, watching him hungrily. He was surprised she wasn’t licking her lips. She slid off to stand and ran her palms down his abdomen, her mouth peppering light kisses over his chest as she coaxed him back with her. “Yeah, right here. On the counter.”

Her tone was one of a person who had absolutely no doubt of her desires. Cunnilingus on a countertop covered in pineapple kitsch it was, then. Ben kicked his jeans across the floor and brought his hands to her hips to peel her panties down her legs. There was another applique pineapple on the crotch, which was about as ridiculous as his notion that she’d probably somehow shaved her pubic hair into an approximation of the same shape—but she hadn’t. He was pretty sure that might have been a bit far even for him. 

Though not so far that he wouldn’t have been thrilled by the prospect of burying his face in it anyway.

He helped her back onto the counter, enjoying the excuse to run his hands over her ass, then knelt between her knees and pulled her forward.

“Did you know . . .” He placed small, sucking kisses on the inside of her upper right thigh, then inched higher as he drew her left up over his shoulder and turned his attentions to it. A voice in the back of his mind was screeching at him to shut up, but as usual, he did not heed it. “ . . . that the pineapple is a symbol of welcome?”

She had amazing legs. And a perfect smile. And a beautiful pussy. And he hadn’t even seen her naked yet. Why was he rambling to her about fruit symbolism? Because he was nervous, that was why. He really needed to work on his bedroom talk. This was the sort of shit that should have ensured he remain thoroughly unfucked by the time the clock hit midnight, and possibly forever after that.

She laughed, though, and it was a thin, breathy approximation of the ones he’d heard her make earlier. Her hands pulled through his hair, her excitement shivering off her fingertips, in the tiny tremors of her thighs at either side of his head, in the way her stomach hitched with another laugh. “So do you feel welcome?”

And then he remembered: somehow, he’d managed to meet the one person in the city who was as much of an awkward, Hawaiian-pizza-loving asshole as he was. Suddenly Ben was much less nervous.

“Very.” 

He scraped his teeth gently over the soft skin of her thigh one more time, then brought his lips experimentally to her center, pressing his tongue just inside, where she was warm and wet and waiting. Rey’s laughs ceased as she sighed once and the tension in her legs eased; she uttered a faint ‘ _oh_ ’ and shifted back onto the counter to drape her free leg over his other shoulder. Emboldened, Ben opened his mouth and let the flat of his tongue part her further to stroke along inside her to her clit, and the throaty moan she gave almost drowned out his own.

Fuck—the _taste_ of her. Something he couldn’t describe, that he supposed was just _her_ , but a little salty, too, and sweet, and . . . Jesus, she— 

She tasted like pineapple. Was this just the power of suggestion? After getting the pizzas; seeing her apartment, all the themed decorations; seeing her in those panties, with those little pineapple appliques over her tits? No, it wasn’t. Rey’s pussy actually fucking tasted like _pineapple_. And Ben got to lap her up until she came. How the fuck had he gotten _this lucky_?

After that discovery it was difficult to fathom how he had ever been apprehensive at all. He managed to string together an embarrassingly awed, “Holy shit, you’re amazing,” and he was pretty sure that would be it for him on the words front for a while.

He pushed into her again with a hot sigh, until he could feel her slickness on his chin, his nose pressed to her mound. His lips found her clit and he sucked, lightly at first, then with more fervor as she shuddered and squeezed her legs around him, her nails digging at his scalp. 

“Oh . . . oh my God . . .ohmygod _ohmygodohmy_ fuck, _Ben_ —” She was whimpering, or he thought she was, as he flicked his tongue more gently over her then let up to move his attention to the drenched folds of her labia and the soft damp skin just at the very top of her thighs. 

Once he broke through his initial haze of euphoria, he found that hearing and feeling her reactions to each touch of his mouth and hands was as good as—maybe better than—the sensation of her against his face. Reluctantly, and perhaps with a bit of egoism, he pulled back for just a few seconds to steal a look at her. 

Her eyes were softly shut and her mouth was gasping, and one of her hands was busy at her breast, pushing at her bra cup and playing with her nipple through the lace. God she was beautiful, and he wanted nothing more than for her to feel how much he desired her. She needed to know. She deserved to know. She deserved everything. He licked his lips, then bent again to enter her with his tongue, shifting her enough to see what would happen if he brought his fingers back into the picture.

Good things, apparently. Rey bucked and twisted on the counter, and the sounds she was making weren't so much words as barely coherent exclamations as he lavished her with his tongue and lips and slid one finger slowly inside her, then a second.

“Touch my— hnh— Ben . . .” She gasped, the hand that wasn't tangled up in his hair groping at his shoulder. “My tits, touch my tits. M’gonna—”

He wouldn't make her ask twice. His free hand moved from her thigh in a sluggish slide up her belly and ribs to settle over her breast. Her nipple was stiff beneath the fabric, and he drew his thumb along the exposed skin at the top of the cup before pinching her lightly as he swirled his tongue over her clit and sped the rhythm of his fingers pumping in and out of her.

She went rigid, her back arching again and her hand jerking in his hair, and she made a keening sound that might have alarmed him if he hadn't known he was the one behind it. He hoped her neighbors were out for the night—the walls in this place were not thick. Rey's legs slackened over his shoulders and he felt the faint contractions of her around his fingers still knuckle-deep inside her as she drew short shuddery breaths.

“God, Rey . . . You’re spectacular . . .” His mouth pressed to her navel as he carefully withdrew his fingers from her and caressed the underside of her thigh. “Where’ve you been all this time?”

Truly, where _had_ she been? It felt like he’d been waiting his whole life for her. 

Both her hands were stroking his face absently, her fingers tracing his cheekbones and jawline and the shell of his ears, like she was memorizing him. She nudged his back with her heels, still breathing hard as her orgasm coursed and began to ebb. “Come kiss me.”

He straightened and stretched over her to draw his hands through her hair and kiss her gently, over and over; though soon enough he couldn’t help the way he grew more insistent, pressing his hard cock between her legs until she gave a quiet whimper as if to ask why he was still wearing his boxers.

Actually, that was a good question.

“Can I take you to bed now, sweetheart?” he asked when she sighed into his mouth. “I need to fuck you. And I don’t want to do it here.”

“Mmhm.” Her chin bumped his nose as her head bobbed in a loose nod, and her arm flailed, heedless of space. The sound of something clattering into the wall and then the floor almost made him jump—that would be the cookie jar falling as her hand knocked into it. “It’s the left. Second door on the left. I’ll . . . just gimme a second to . . .”

Ben scooped her up before she could finish her sentence, and she gave a pleased little sigh as she nestled her face into the crook of his neck and wrapped around him, skin to skin, her sweat mingling with his as he carried her down the hall. The second door on the left was already ajar, so he pushed it open with his knee, . . . and came to an abrupt halt when Rey reached out to flick the lightswitch.

“That the new bed you were talking about?” 

She started to suck at the skin under his ear, and he almost dropped her. “Yep,” she whispered, mouth curving in a smile.

It was a king, which was sort of amazing, and had four fancy-looking wooden bed posts, each topped with a carved pineapple. Her bedspread was a cheerful citrusy yellow, her pillowcases rich green; the bedside lamp was shaped like a—actually, if he tried to catalogue just how deep Rey’s obsession seemed to go, he would be standing there with a her in his arms and a boner the size of Vermont for the next week and a half.

Maybe . . . maybe she was some kind of psychopath after all and was going to murder him in this apartment and pickle his body in pineapple juice. He would become a cautionary tale, or an _Unsolved Mysteries_ episode (though he was more a _Forensic Files_ man, himself).

Why did that thought . . . sort of turn him on? Not the being murdered part, but the pineapple juice part, for sure. He wondered if she had any in the fridge. She probably did.

“Nice,” he muttered. Nice indeed.

A wave of shivers washed over him as her mouth traveled from his jaw to his neck, dropping kisses along the way. “I have an idea,” she whispered in his ear. 

As if it hadn’t been beating fast enough already, Ben’s heart quickened, his hands slightly squeezing Rey’s thighs. Something halfway between a moan and a giggle echoed from her throat, and she began to graze her teeth up his neck to his earlobe. His thoughts shifted back to her fridge and, before he could think about it, the words left his mouth in a clumsy babble.

“I— I’ve got one too.”

He felt her lips curl into a smile against his neck, and God—how could she make everything look so hot?

“Tell me,” she encouraged him with a husky voice.

The whole thing suddenly seemed way less sexy than how he’d imagined it. What was he supposed to say? “I . . .”

“Yes?” She hadn’t stopped peppering kisses on his neck, which wasn’t helping at all.

“I— Juice,” he managed to babble between the heavy breaths caused by her touch.

If that was too much, this was where the fun would stop, sentencing him to a life of chastity—but something in the way Rey held her breath led him to believe that what was about to happen had nothing to do with chastity. Pulling away just enough to see him, she considered him for a few seconds before her eyes drifted to the door leading to the kitchen they’d just left. 

“Go get it,” she whispered.

Ben knew he shouldn’t have been surprised; yet he still couldn’t believe out of all the countries, cities and buildings in the world, the most perfect girl had only been a few floors away from him.  
Nodding frantically, he let Rey slip out of his embrace and land on the bed they’d just reached. It took him a few seconds to look away, having forgotten only her bra had survived their earlier escapade to the kitchen. Keeping an eye on her, he quickly made his way to the door, his feet meeting the walls once or twice as Rey gave him a devilish smile. Just as he was about to leave, her hand disappeared behind her back and a small ‘clic!’ echoed in the room. Almost immediately, the elastic outlining her breast loosened, and one of the straps fell along her shoulder.

Maybe she was a psychopath, after all. But if she was, and tonight was Ben’s last night, he’d rather enjoy it to the fullest. Almost running to the kitchen, his hips bumped against the counter a few times before he reached the fridge, drawing a few ‘ _fuck fuck fuck_ ’s out of his mouth every time. In less than a few seconds, his hands closed on the thin white handle and his suspicion—or was it a fantasy?—got confirmed: a few cans of sliced pineapple were stocked behind the door, patiently waiting between wine bottles and mustard jars. Not thinking twice, Ben grabbed the first one and ran back to Rey’s room, bumping into the counter one last time.

“I— I got it,” he articulated as he passed the door.

If the way back to the room had gotten him breathless, what he saw on the bed left him speechless. Her devilish smile was still on her lips, but it was now the only thing Rey was wearing. Completely naked, she was staring back at him, sitting right in the center of the bed. “Come here.”

Of course, he couldn’t refuse. Swallowing with difficulty, Ben took the few steps separating them, his eyes devouring her body as his boxers felt tighter than ever. She was perfect—more than perfect. Following the trail of freckles running from her cleavage to her breast with his gaze, he sat on the bed; his fingers closed firmly on the cold can of fruits.

“Open it,” Rey whispered.

She was just as breathless as he was, her eyes fixed on his as he obeyed. After a few minutes of fumbling with the opening, his fingers found the small strip and with a muffled pop, he opened the can. The sound seemed to awaken something in Rey, who closed her eyes and parted her lips just enough for him to hear her request. “Pour it on me.” 

And again, how could he refuse?

The desire to get rid of his damn boxers was increasing dangerously, but something told him that feeling Rey do it would be better than anything he'd ever experienced. Doing his best to control his shaky breaths, Ben raised the half-open can a few inches, slightly uncertain of what she was expecting of him. He’d heard many things about sex during his almost thirty years of life, but he was pretty was pineapple juice had never been mentioned. What if he hadn’t heard clearly? What if-— what if he wasn’t good at it? Worst of all: what if Rey was actually joking? There was no way she was—

Before he could think about asking her how she wanted him to proceed, her hand closed around his wrist, gentle but impatient. Not once breaking eye contact, she slowly guided him along her naked body, the can grazing her skin as it went up. After a few seconds that felt like eternity, she stopped right above her cleavage and tilted his wrist just enough to free a light amount of juice.  
It took Ben every remnant of self-control not to pin Rey on the mattress right then and there. With impressive speed, the liquid ran along her skin, and he found himself almost jealous. Breast, stomach, thighs; in the blink of an eye, half of her body was covered in pineapple juice, shining and shivering. Was it a symbolism thing meant to make him feel welcome?

“Rey, what—”

Faster than he was, she captured his lips with hers, the maddening scent accompanying her movement. “Kiss me.”

“I am,” he whispered against her lips.

Satisfied by the answer, Rey deepened the kiss with a smile. In less than a minute, her legs found their way around his waist and before Ben realized it, she was straddling him. Quickly, their embrace became messier, her wet skin tickling his chest with every swing of her hips. Each movement, each brush of their tongues only worsened his erection, and there was now no way she couldn’t feel it. In fact, she even seemed rather satisfied by it, grinding herself against him with insistence. One more time, and he wouldn’t last much longer.

“Rey—” The word died on his lips, replaced by a muffled gasp. Of course, she had to squeeze her thighs around him. Willing to make this a night they would never forget, Ben broke the kiss and took a deep breath. Before she could bewitch him again, he tilted his head just enough to gain access to her neck and dropped a kiss here.

Her skin was still sticky with the juice, but he found that he didn’t mind. A brief lick of his lips informed him that what he’d expected turned out to be true: the taste of pineapple juice was still there. Eager to taste every part of her his mouth would be able to reach, Ben plunged back to her neck and began to suck the skin, drawing a little gasp out of her. As he progressed, his mouth trailed down her cleavage and found her breast, licking every remnant of juice he could find along the way.

“Straighten up?” he asked when his mouth couldn’t go any further.

Her hands planted on his shoulders, Rey nodded frantically and rose up a few inches. Accompanying her move, Ben kept his hands on her hips, holding her firmly as his tongue continued its journey along her body. Her nipples, her navel, her ribs: he made sure not a single spot was forgotten, feeling a little prouder every time his name crossed her lips with a shiver.

“Enough,” Rey mumbled after a while.

He’d barely reached her thighs when her voice caressed his ear. Forgetting about his initial plan of a round two, Ben loosened his grip on her waist and watched her sink back on his lap, repressing a shiver when her legs brushed him just where he was the most sensitive. Maybe he’d gone too far, after all.

“Too much?” he asked in a breath, still not used to the sight of Rey fully naked on him.

She shook her head, a smile on her lips. “No,” she murmured. “No, it’s . . .”

He never knew how it’d been. Giggling, Rey bent down just enough to kiss him, and the series of messy kisses continued. After a few seconds, she pulled away just enough to leave Ben with a sensation of emptiness on his lap and on his lips, her own lips down his throat with haste. Quickly, her hands joined the dance, grazing his arms until they ended their race on the elastic of his boxers.

“What are you doing?” Ben asked as she began to roll it down his hips.

The same devilish smile she’d worn earlier curled her lips when she looked up, and he knew exactly what she was doing. “Thanking you.”

“What for?”

As a response, she rose up and crushed her mouth against his with such strength that his back hit the mattress in the blink of an eye. Not giving him enough time to sit up, she joined him, her legs on either sides on his waist as she continued to drag warm, wet kisses over his chest. Ben was going to lose it right then and there if she kept doing that, but just as his eyes were starting to roll back in his head, and his skull made its way toward the headboard, he remembered something crucial. 

“Wait, Rey,” he said, breaking their kiss as the condoms in his wallet suddenly entered his memory. “I almost forgot about protection.”

Her eyes went wide as she sat back on his lap, the apex of her thighs just inches from his cock as she stared at him, and covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, shit, I almost forgot, too. It’s never been a problem I had.”

“Me neither.”

“Do you have a condom?” she asked quietly. “‘Cause this night is going really well, and I don’t want to stop. I never want to—“

He cut her off with another kiss, then he pulled away, and grinned. “I have condoms in my wallet,” he told her, then he winked. “I think you’ll appreciate them, too.”

An inquisitive look appeared on her face. “Why?” 

Another wink. “You’ll see, but you’ve gotta get off of me first so I can go get them,” he said, then he pressed a kiss to the edge of her jaw. “Can you do that for me, Rey?” The words were whispered against her skin, and she gasped against him before giving him a nod, and rolling off of him so she laid sprawled out on the bed by his side. 

“What are you waiting for, then?” she asked, a mischievous grin on her face as he slid off of the bed. 

Ben’s heart was absolutely pounding in his chest as he walked out of the bedroom, not even bothering to close the door behind him as he ran over to his discarded jacket, bending over to pick it up and missing it several times before he finally got it. His fingers, still slick from the time they spent inside of her, rummaged through the pocket until they found his wallet. 

By the time Ben got back to Rey, he was fearful that she wouldn’t want to do this anymore, but if the look she gave him as she stood up off of the bed and came toward him was anything to go by, she definitely still wanted to do this. One thing was for certain: she was going to be the death of him. 

His eyes followed her on her approach, and she kept a smug look on her face as she reached forward, and snatched the yellow wrapper from his hands, inspecting it for a moment before she burst out laughing. “Pineapple flavored condoms?” she cried excitedly, then he gave her an eager nod, and she threw her arms around his neck, kissing him forcefully enough that he swayed on his feet. It felt like an eternity went by before he gained stability in his stance, and he returned her kiss properly. He could still taste faint little traces of the fruit on her lips, and as if he hadn’t had enough, he wanted to drink her in even more. 

After a few seconds, Rey pulled away, and unwound one of her arms from his neck before reaching for the boxers that were still halfway down his ass—which must have made quite the look when he went into her living room a moment earlier—and pushing them down the rest of the way. The material piled on the floor beneath them, and instantly, her eyes drifted down to his erection, widening as she took him in for the first time. “Holy fuck,” she breathed. “Do you work in the porn industry?”

“What?”

“Are you a fucking pornstar?”

“Well, no, I am currently—barely—a virgin, so that would be a little bit of an interesting job,” he said, and she nearly lost it laughing again. 

“Ben, you have the biggest dick I’ve ever seen. You . . . you also have the only dick I’ve ever seen, but . . . wow . . .” she replied, running a hand through her hair nervously before she laughed again. 

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” he asked, concern dripping from his voice as he looked down at her slightly worried expression. 

She gave him a nod, then she started giggling again. “The pornstar virgin. What a concept,” she told him, then the two of them burst into renewed laughter. 

Rey calmed down a moment later, and locked her eyes on his as she brought the condom up to her lips, and took the edge of the wrapper between her teeth. If Ben’s cock could’ve gotten any harder, it would have. Watching her tear the wrapped between her teeth and subsequently spit the edge of it onto her bedroom floor was something that shouldn’t have been that sexy, but for some fucking reason it drove him wild. 

He could hear his pulse in his ears as she unwrapped her other arm from his neck, and used her nimble fingers to remove the condom from its confines. Ben felt a blush creeping up his cheeks as she took it in her hands and sniffed it to see if it actually smelled as promised. She gave him a disappointed shrug, then she took his cock in one of her hands. 

For a moment he forgot how to breathe as she gave him a few experimental strokes, her fingers gliding over him in a manner that was a little shaky, but still confident all the same. Her thumb scraped over the tip, and his knees nearly buckled as a moan escaped him. “Rey, if you keep doing that, I’m gonna come right now,” he warned her, and she simply smirked at him, repeating that motion with her thumb once more. 

After what felt like a blissfully painful eternity, Rey released her grip on his cock, and finally worked the condom over it. Somehow, she maintained eye contact with him the entire time, which shouldn’t have been almost as hot as having her hands on him, but somehow it was. His breathing was shaky as she stretched it over him, and once she was done, she wrapped her arms around his neck again and kissed him. 

This kiss was instantly more gentle than the last, but still as her tongue darted out to meet his, he knew this was just an opening act. She quickly pulled him flush against her, but kept control of the kiss by fisting one of her hands into his hair, making him moan involuntarily against her mouth as she turned them around so that he had his back to the bed. Ben barely even noticed the change as she walked them forward until the backs of his legs brushed up against her duvet, and they fell onto the bed together without managing to break the kiss. If he were able to think about anything but the electricity stemming from their connected lips that was now shooting up and down his entire body, he would’ve been impressed. 

They bounced up off of the mattress a few times, but after a couple of seconds they settled, and Rey’s kisses grew more intense as her legs parted around his. On each side of him, he felt her bent legs resting against his hips, her entrance nearly perfectly aligned with his cock, but they still weren’t quite there yet. Ben would swear he was going to die a slow and painful death at her hands as she began to grind against him. 

Ben broke the kiss to cry out her name, and he felt her pull further away from him so that she was sitting up on his lap. He swallowed nervously as he watched her reach down between his legs, taking his cock into her hands once more. “I should warn you, I have no idea what I’m doing,” she said, that worried look creeping into her eyes anew. 

All he did in response was shrug, then he placed a hand on her cheek and grinned. “I’ll enjoy it anyway, I promise. I don’t know what I’m doing either.”

That seemed to lift her spirits a bit, and she closed her eyes, taking in a deep, shuddering breath before she rose up above his cock and positioned him at her entrance. There was one last, tiny moment of hesitation before she began to lower herself onto him, and they moaned in unison as she sheathed him inside of her. This time, Ben’s eyes did roll back in his head, and he collapsed against her pillow as she took him in inch by inch.

The whole process was slow, almost agonizingly so, but when Rey whimpered slightly, his eyes snapped open, and he sat up on his elbows, fearing that he’d hurt her for a moment as she remained frozen above him. “Are you okay?” 

She quickly nodded. “I’m fine, I’m just . . . I’m not used to this . . .” she replied, then she laughed. “You’re almost bigger than my fucking dildo, Ben.”

He nearly snorted. “Must be one shit dildo, then,” he replied, then he sat up fully, his arms coming up to support her so she was flush against his chest. It turned him on even more when he realized she was still rather sticky from their venture with the juice, and he began to wonder if he tasted like pineapples too just from being in contact with her. He couldn’t wait to find out, that was for sure. “Rey, are you sure you’re alright?”

She was grinning at him now, and he knew she was perfectly fine as she leaned down, and brushed her lips briefly against his. “I am now,” she said, then she whispered into his ear, “Follow my lead,” and he knew then and there he was going to have those words written on his fucking tombstone. 

Rey began to grind down onto his cock, and he quickly caught on, shifting his hips up into her in time with her own thrusts as her lips came down onto his once again. Her hands weaved themselves through his hair, but for once that wasn’t his favorite feeling. No, his new favorite sensation was that of his cock nearly buried to the hilt—she hadn’t quite managed to take the last two or so inches—inside of her. It felt better than anything he’d experienced in his life— _fuck_ , it was even better than the taste of pineapples, or the taste of Hawaiian pizzas themselves. 

His own hand would never satisfy him again after this. No, every single orgasm he ever had would be nothing compared to the one he knew she was inevitably going to give him, and he hadn’t even experienced it yet. That would bring him to his death for certain, _but what a way to go_. They’d have to write, “Ben Solo, age 30, came and went on the nineteenth of November, 2018,” on his grave if she kept moving on top of him like _that_. 

Rey’s pace was swift, but it was just slow enough that he could tell she was trying to bring him to his orgasm slowly. She was trying to make him wait for it, and he was going to lose his mind if he had to wait another minute to come, but for her, he would wait a thousand years. He would wait as long as she wanted him to, and maybe that made him submissive lord supreme, ruler of the submissives, but he didn’t give a shit. Just making her come on her own kitchen counter had been enough to almost satisfy him, almost. He could barely imagine what it would be like to actually do it inside of her. 

After a few more minutes, Rey broke the kiss—well, she’d broken it a few times to come up for air technically, but she’d always been back on him immediately once they’d both had a second to breathe—and began to trail kisses down onto his neck. She latched onto a point just beyond where his pulse was racing at an unhealthy pace and sucked his skin into her mouth. 

Ben’s eyes slammed shut then, and he thought he was seeing stars as the two of them fell back onto the mattress once more. Somehow, despite her own inexperience, she managed to ride him the entire time. 

They may have only known each other for a few days, but Ben was fairly certain that if her name fell from his lips when he reached his climax, it would immediately be followed by, “will you marry me?”

“Rey, Jesus Christ,” he breathed, barely able to get even those words out as she ground onto him more forcefully, and he felt his orgasm slowly starting to build within him as she let go of his neck, and brought her kisses down onto his chest. His arms wrapped around her back,and one palm splayed out over her spine while the other buried itself in her hair as he cried out from the pleasure she brought him. “Fuck!” 

He nearly lost it again as Rey’s tongue came out and tasted his skin just over his nipple; then she broke away from him and winked. “You taste good, too,” she told him. He let out a noise that was somewhere between a moan and a whimper. It was impossible to tell as she shut him up with another kiss, and he groaned again as she continued her ministrations on his cock. 

The taste of pineapple was still present in her mouth, though he could barely take note of it as his orgasm began to make itself known. He let himself kiss her for a few more seconds, tasting the sweetness lingering in her mouth before he broke away, laying kisses on her neck between words as he warned her, “Rey, I’m,” _kiss_ , “going to,” _kiss_ , “come.”

She gasped softly as Ben began to suck a mark by her pulse point, then when he was done, she slowed her pace on his hips just enough to make him groan for more before she whispered into his ear, “Then come for me, Ben,” and he finally lost control. 

Ben managed to hold back the marriage proposal as every coherent thought left his brain while he came inside of her, the grip he had on her back—in her hair—tightening as he reached his orgasm with a loud cry. A series of incoherent swears with her name sprinkled throughout escaped in place of the proposal, and he held her close against him as she continued to roll her hips down onto his cock. 

Another moan left her lips, then the faint sound of his name tumbled out as she came immediately after him, and just like earlier he felt her contracting around him. When she did it around his cock, though, he thought it might just have been the best thing he’d ever experienced, and he told her as much as she rested her now sweaty forehead against his, and he breathed her name in the quietest voice. He was so quiet, he couldn’t even be sure she’d heard him, but he knew she did by the soft exhale of a laugh she gave as she began to slow the rocking of her hips. 

Yet as the two of them worked each other through their orgasms, Ben knew the moment it was over that even if he met other people and trusted them enough to let them into his bed, they’d never make him feel like she did. Rey was it for him, and even after only a few days, he had a small feeling she felt the same. Some people got lucky, he reasoned. For some people, they knew instantly they’d found the right one, and maybe it wasn’t love at first sight, but he was fairly certain it was definitely love at second. 

It was like the song that had been playing when they met. He wanted to know what love was, and she’d certainly shown him. The thought of the Foreigner song had him laughing as he lay there on her bed, completely spent now that he’d finally been allowed to finish, and she pulled back from him a bit, resting her chin on his chest as she quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at him. “What?”

Ben shook his head, then propped his head up on his arm as he unwound it from her back. He left his hand in her hair, though, and began to rub soft little circles into it as she lay on top of him. A part of him was aware that his cock was softening inside of her, but he didn’t care one bit as his eyes found hers in the dim light of her room. “I was just thinking about that stupid fucking song,” he said. Then he laughed, singing the first two lines of the chorus out loud and perhaps slightly off key at some points—he blamed the fact that he was still shaking from what had just transpired between them—but cohesively enough to get the point across. 

She returned his giggle and slowly nodded. “Yeah, it was playing in the fucking Papa John’s when we met,” she said, her eyes filling with nostalgia over a two-day-old memory. “I was so mad at you for stealing my pizza. You were such a dick.”

Ben winced, but she was right. “I was, I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he said. She shook her head. 

“It’s okay, I’m not mad, I just . . .” She slowly rolled off of him then, and he groaned at the loss of her on top of him as he removed the condom from his cock and tossed it into the wastebasket by her bedside. “I’m just glad it let me meet you.”

Another grin spread wide on his face, and he wrapped both of his arms around her, turning so that he could press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m glad I met you, too,” he said quietly, then he began to gently stroke her hair as they laid together in the afterglow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _WHAT_ could Chapter 4 have in store for our two lovebirds? Find out in the next and final installment!


	4. Happy Birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice the total chapter count has jumped from four to five—SURPRISE. Except no one is surprised because if you have been following this fic, you know all three of us have zero self control.
> 
> CHAPTER FIVE, coming soon. In the mean time, please enjoy ~this~.
> 
> And, as always, thanks for having as much fun with this as we have, and for letting us ruin pineapples for you.

But it was a really sticky afterglow. Between what he supposed must be the usual combination of sweat and saliva and other miscellaneous fluids, to say nothing of the addition of a can of pineapple juice into the equation . . . they were both a bit of a mess. Ben was pretty sure people didn’t usually just fall asleep like this. Though to be fair, people weren’t usually covered in a postcoital rime of fructose, either.

Still, he was immersed enough in the sheer bliss of lying there with Rey that he indulged his baser urges a little longer, ignoring the fact that there was a part of him that found his current standards of hygiene deeply distressing. It was very easy indeed to ignore that when she had settled against him so naturally, like this was the fiftieth time they’d done this rather than the first, like they’d been together for a lifetime. Two days ago he would have scoffed at the notion that such a sense of instant knowing, trust, and intimacy was possible. For anyone, and certainly not for him. And two days ago, he was a fucking idiot.

The soft sound of a sigh from Rey brought him out of his reveries, and he cracked an eye open to look at her where she had pillowed her head against his chest, her hair spreading like a fan over her skin and his. She tilted her head to look back, and her smile was sleepy and syrupy sweet. No one had ever looked at him the way she was looking at him now; it made him feel like he was about to float away.

“What?” He let his thumb travel over her cheek and down to the soft pout of her lips, still pink and a little puffy from how thoroughly he’d kissed her. 

“This is . . . this is so perfect,” she muttered, then dipped her face to press her lips to his skin a few times. There was something lazy about it, like it wasn’t so much a kiss as the fact that she just wanted to touch him in as many ways as possible. “I’ve got another idea.”

Ben chuckled and let his hand wander from where it had been resting on her back further down to where her ass began to curve. She had a great ass. He hadn’t actually seen much of it yet, but he was hoping to change that soon. If one of them to could be bothered to get out of bed. 

“Does it involve more juice? Because I saw _several_ cans in your fridge.”

She laughed, and then snorted, which was way more charming than it had any right to be. “No. Not now, anyway.” 

By then she seemed to have realized how much he particularly enjoyed her hands in his hair, and she ran them both through it, circling the pads of her fingers over his scalp in a way that made him want to roll her under him and fuck her all over again. 

“Would you like to spend the night?” she asked, her cheek lolling against his chest.

It hadn’t occurred to him that his staying wasn’t a foregone conclusion, but then that was probably presumptuous of him. “Are you kidding? I’ll stay as long as you want.” _My whole fucking life._

“Good. Because I was thinking, it’d be a shame to let the pizzas go to waste. And I’m awfully hungry. But also, a hot shower might be nice first. If you care to join me.” Rey kissed his neck, and then his lips, sucking his lower lip between hers for a few seconds before drawing back with a gentle, cheeky smile. “Thoughts?”

Ben’s thoughts were, generally, that he still could only half believe Rey was real and not just some fever dream his subconscious had cooked up in the wake of his consuming some poorly cooked shellfish—though he didn’t say that. He just said he thought her plan sounded fantastic and followed her to the bathroom when they both managed to haul themselves out of bed ten minutes later.

At this point the fact that her bathroom decor followed in much the same tradition as the rest of her apartment (and, he supposed, her life at large) barely registered. A chipper, graphic pineapple print adorned the shower curtain, and Target must have had an entire line of pineapple bathroom accoutrements at some point in the last month, and Rey had bought them all. 

As the two of them stood in her bathroom, waiting for the water in the shower to get warm, Ben thought it was sort of a shame he’d left the rest of those condoms in his apartment. For a very long time, even one had seemed needlessly ambitious. Now, he was silently cursing himself for not being _more_ ambitious. Yet there were other novelties presenting themselves now that were much more pleasant, and his annoyance with himself was fleeting.

He had never showered with someone else before—not romantically. He had never squabbled jokingly with someone over the water pressure, or the angle of the shower head, or the temperature of the water. He had never let a beautiful woman prod him playfully beneath a stream of pleasantly hot water, or massage fruit-scented suds over his skin, or done the same for her in turn.

“Why’re you so bloody tall?” she demanded through a laugh, reaching again for the shower head in an attempt to angle it more in her favor. Ben let her win this time; watching the water run the soap off her body in rivulets was a reward in its own right.

He got his arms around her, which was easier said than done when they were both slicked over with suds, and pinned her to the tiled wall, body flush with hers. “Is that a complaint?” 

“Cold wall!” Rey shrieked and scrabbled with him, then decided to grope his ass instead. When she settled down a few moments later, shaking only sporadically with a smothered laugh, she pulled herself up a bit and planted her chin on his shoulder. “Not a complaint. Not at all. I think I . . .” She smushed her mouth against his neck, then murmured, “I think I kind of love you. It. Ugh. Fuck it. You. I’m sorry if that’s— That’s too much.” 

She drew back as much as she could, until her back hit the wall again—which was to say, not much. She looked repentant and embarrassed, almost the way she had when she’d botched asking for his number. “It is. We just met. Shit. It’s just—”

Ben thought he might be about to sink right through the floor of the shower (apologies to the downstairs neighbor who would shortly be dealing with the problem of a wet, naked man phasing through their ceiling at some unknown and ungodly hour of the morning).

“No. It’s not. I— Rey . . .” He wasn’t sure what to say in the moment, because it was what he’d  
been thinking all night and suddenly any sense of how to say it had flown from his head. So he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her instead—on her forehead, then her lips—and somehow that helped. “I feel it too. You’re definitely not— You’re not alone.”

“No?” Her eyebrows rose a fraction, like she thought she might have misheard him over the water.

He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation in the shower with a woman he’d met two days ago and since fallen stupidly hard for, but . . . “I’ve— I didn’t want to say it because I figured you’d think I was a creep or something. But this feels . . .”

“Real?” 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she echoed, looking as bemused as he felt at the turn things had taken. “Okay. Wow. I mean—” She shook her head and chuckled, then scuffed her hand over the top of his head, sending a spray of foamy soap suds over his eyes. “This is ridiculous.”

“Slightly,” he agreed, and felt his stomach rumble a reminder that his body had needs beyond those dictated by his cock. 

Rey must have heard it, because she splayed a palm over his belly and feigned a gasp. “Shit, thought that was me. Didn’t expect all this to make me so hungry.”

Neither had he, but he was doubly glad now that they’d forewent the pizzas earlier, because it meant they really did have a veritable feast before them. They rinsed off and spent a little longer fucking around before hopping out to avail themselves of the plush, warm towels Rey had left on the counter. Ten minutes later, Ben had finally made good on his earlier offer to get the plates, and Rey had manifested another six pack of Bud seemingly out of thin air, and they were in her living room, huddled on the couch with the pizzas spread out on the coffee table before them.

“You sure you don’t want to run up to yours for a change of clothes or a toothbrush or something?”

He’d thrown his boxers back on, which was more than comfortable enough and wasn’t all that far from Rey’s own choice of attire: towel wrapped around her hair, oversized T-shirt (University of Cambridge, he noted), and underwear (blasphemously pineapple-less). Fresh-faced and fragrant from the shower, she was more magnetic than ever, and he had very little desire to be away from her. Even so, he could think of a few more compelling reasons that a stop in his apartment might not be the worst idea before they turned in for good—the rest of the condoms, for one thing. Just in case.

“Ah, well. I should probably go up when we’re done here.” He popped a can open and took a swig. “Just real quick.”

“I promise I won’t think you’re abandoning me,” she said lightly, then joked, “Got to feed the fish?”

“Dog. Or at least let him out. Should’ve done a few hours ago, but . . .”

“Well, my apologies to your dog, then.” Rey grinned. “What sort is he?”

“The big sort. German Shepherd.”

“I can see it.” She peered at him appraisingly. “You’re the big sort yourself. Seems fitting.”

He chuckled at that through some half-chewed pizza. “His name’s Comosus,” he told her after he’d swallowed. “Como.”

“That like an outer space thing?”

“Nah, Latin.”

“Ooh, very fancy.” Somehow, she was already starting her third piece. Ben couldn’t help it: he was making this an unspoken competition, and she seemed to have caught on implicitly. “You a Latin teacher or something? Wayward priest? Hogwarts professor gone rogue?”

“Afraid not. I work in an office. For . . .” He cleared his throat, mildly embarrassed by his forthcoming admission—it was impossible not to make it sound like he wasn’t essentially living off family money, especially when he rather resented the position. “For my family’s company. Skywalker Enterprises. It’s mostly . . . aerospace engineering, R&D, that kind of stuff.”

Rey froze for a blink-and-miss it moment. “I’ve heard of it, as a matter of fact.”

“What about you?” he prompted when she lapsed into thoughtful silence. 

It was the first time she’d been so quiet in . . . well, the first time he had seen her so quiet in the short time he’d known her. He didn’t yet know her well enough to know what it meant. It did hit him in that moment that they _were_ getting to know each other now. He’d always hated this part of socializing—the bullshit small talk, the seemingly rote questions, the pretending to care—the sort of stuff they had miraculously skipped over on their date. But now he realized he would have been happy to sit there for the rest of the night listening to Rey talk and telling her whatever she wanted to know about himself in return.

“I’ve actually just sort of landed like . . . my dream job. S’why I moved from London. Um—” A piece of pizza had nearly fallen out of her mouth, and she shoved it back in with an open palm and finished chewing before she tried to speak again. “See, I’m an engineer. Satellites, mostly. I was hired as head of design, for . . . well.” She paused again, and a little bell began to go off in Ben’s head. _Oh shit_. “Skywalker Enterprises.”

Eyes widening a fraction, he stared at her. “You’re fucking with me.”

“Not remotely.” She laughed nervously, then grabbed his shoulder and shook him gently back and forth until he couldn’t help laughing too. “I’m telling you, this is bloody . . . fate, or something. I don’t even believe in that shit, but this weekend’s been changing my mind.”

“I’ve been thinking that myself.”

“So . . . just to be clear . . .” she said, fighting a smile. “Your ‘office job’ there isn’t code for ‘very tall and sexy welcoming committee’, yeah? Because I have to say, if it is, this place blows all the other places I’ve worked out of the water for hospitality.”

“It’s not.” In fact, he was probably the least suited person there for welcoming anyone to anything. “Though if you find a pineapple on your desk in the near future, you can consider it a belated welcome.”

Rey looked at him mischievously and stretched her leg out to run her sock-covered foot up the inside of his thigh. “Now you’ve said that, I will have words for you if I don’t get one.”

They finished the pizzas—in the end, only three slices remained, and they decided to call it a tie—and cleared up most of the mess. It was difficult to resist the urge to make out in the kitchen a while, until Rey mumbled something about tidying up the kitchen and her bed while he made his stop at his place. To Ben’s relief, Como had not left any unpleasant surprises, so he took him for a quick walk around the property dog run, refilled his water bowl, grabbed his own necessities for the night, and was back at Rey’s in what felt like forever but had probably only been a half hour.

She’d already turned the lights out in the other rooms and was waiting for him in bed by the time he’d finished brushing his teeth, her T-shirt shed, a corner of the bedspread folded back in invitation for him to join her. He wasn’t sure if she would want to be close—she had a giant bed, which seemed to suggest she liked space. But she scooted right up next to him the moment he clicked the bedside lamp off, and wrapped an arm around his middle, her skin soft and inviting, and tucked her face close to his.

Her deep breathing easily lulled him to sleep, making him forget about the numerous times he’d struggled with insomnia during his childhood. Nightmares, memories, endless questionings: it all disappeared with the rhythm of her chest rising and falling at his side, tranquil and comforting. The warmth of her body didn’t leave him for the whole night—so much so that in the morning, Ben found himself rather surprised to wake up alone.

Of course, his first thought was that she’d rolled to the other side of the bed; but considering how large the damn thing was, not even his extended arm could manage to reach the other end. Not without a sigh, he opened one eye, then the other, and stretched out with as much grace as a newborn whale.

The bright yellow sheets slid along his bare body as he sat up, curiously eyeing the room. Now that the sun was up, a few details he hadn’t noticed the day before came to his attention. Most of her walls were empty, except for one that was covered with pictures. Not a single face, not even her own, was smiling at the camera. Narrowing his eyes, Ben realized these were actually pictures of watery places. Beaches, lakes, rivers: she’d taken pictures of every one she’d ever seen, indifferent to the lack of originality in each new picture. Forgetting about the mystery of Rey’s disappearance, Ben left the bed, eager to take a closer look at the curious exhibition.

But, just as his feet met the cold carpet—pineapple, of course—settled next to the bed, a mouthwatering smell reached his nose, beckoning him to go to the kitchen. Acknowledging his growling stomach and the fact that he should probably get ready to leave, Ben followed the fragrance across the corridor and to the kitchen, where Rey greeted him with a warm smile. Her hair was pushed back in a messy bun that allowed him to notice the few marks he’d left on her hours ago, and his lips curled in a smile as well.

“So, uh . . . happy birthday?”

She had a bit of flour on her cheek, but barely enough to cover her freckles. Hypnotized by this and the many ways he could think of to get her rid of it, Ben hardly managed to take his eyes off her, resulting in a muffled ‘fuck’ to cross his lips as he bumped into the counter. Again.

“You’re not making a cake, are you?” he asked nervously as he walked around the counter.

A soft chuckle escaped Rey, followed by a shake of her head. “Just pancakes,” she replied, motioning to the frying pan in her hand. 

Definitely more awake than him, she turned back to the hotplate in a swift spin, tilting her head from one side to the other as her hips followed. _Was she dancing_? The answer quickly occurred to Ben as he finally heard the song playing from her phone, placed in the back pocket of the jeans she’d thrown on. How she’d managed to get dressed and start cooking without waking him up was a mystery.

Something about the song she was listening to seemed familiar, yet he couldn’t exactly place it. It sounded like something he could’ve heard in the numerous vacation clubs his parents had dragged him to until his early twenties, relaxing and ridiculously catching. Taking the few steps separating them, Ben sneaked behind Rey and lazily rested his chin on her shoulder, his hands tentatively caressing her waist. “What’s that song?”

He could feel her smile widen against his cheek and her body shake with a little giggle. “You can’t be serious!”

Clueless about what she meant, he tilted his head just enough to see her eyes and shrugged.

“The Pineapple Song?” he asked with a sarcastic grin.

Another giggle. “Almost.”

Frowning, Ben stopped talking to listen carefully, now curious about the lyrics. In just a few seconds, he realized. _Of course. Of fucking course_. How many times had he heard his father sing—or rather scream—this song during a long ride, usually seconded by his godfather Lando who never missed an occasion to start some impromptu karaoke in the family car anytime Han decided to bring his best friend along with them. All at once, the memories came rushing back, and so did the lyrics.

“ _If you like pina coladas_ …”

“— _and getting caught in the rain_ ,” Rey confirmed with a nod.

Stuck between the hotplate and him she continued the little dance she’d started before his arrival, oblivious of how her ass brushed him. Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing. Guided by a sudden desire to amuse her despite his shitty dance skills, Ben buried his face in her neck and let his hands slide along her hips, moving his just enough to follow the rhythm she’d settled on. If he could have sex with such a perfect woman, what were a few dance moves?

The idea seemed to please Rey, who abandoned the pancakes to place her hands on his. Before he could think of anything, she turned to face him and intertwined their fingers as she guided him to the living room area, one step after the other. Oh God, this wasn’t good at all. He could ice-skate and fake a few moves, but if she was expecting him to dance with the same ease she was currently showing, she would be disappointed. “Rey, I—”

“ _If you like making love at midnight_!” she sang loudly, covering his attempt to stop her. She wasn’t exactly dancing; at least she wasn’t following a specific pattern. Giggling, she kept bouncing from one foot to the other, her arms pulling his around her waist excitedly as her bun threatened to surrender to her excitement.

Quickly, the chorus ended and her moves slowed down, more languorous. Her hips met his again and she wrapped her arms around his neck, beckoning him to bend down. Too weak to refuse, Ben obeyed and kissed her tenderly. Now free, his hands weren't long to find their way on the small of her back and drag her closer, closer until he could feel her warmth against him again, smiling as he wished for every morning to be like this.

The dance kept slowing down as the kiss deepened, and just in a few seconds, Rey was guiding him to the sofa. Once again, he couldn’t refuse her anything and allowed his legs to bend as they met the itchy surface, just as he allowed Rey to climb on his lap once he'd sat down. To hell with work, getting dressed, or dancing correctly: the only thing that counted was right in front of him, and he wanted nothing more than to give her all his attention. Just as it had the night before, his heart missed a beat and he felt the need to get her even closer, to break every wall standing between them—currently consisting of a pair of jeans and boxers that were starting to feel insanely tight.

‘ _And the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne_ ’ the song continued to play in her pocket, slightly muffled by her movements.

“We should— get you champagne for tonight,” Rey articulated between kisses, breathless. “It’s your fucking birthday.”

He didn’t say anything, too busy trying to memorize every morsel of her skin as his mouth drifted to her neck. She didn’t seem too bothered, a smile on her lips as she absent-mindedly ran a few fingers through his hair, humming the end of the song while a trail of shivers emerged under his kisses.

He could’ve stayed like this an hour, if not the whole day, had Rey not almost crushed him with her knee when she jumped a few seconds later. “Shit, it’s burning!”

Quickly, she ran to the kitchen, where grey smoke was starting to obscure the hotplates, and fumbled around for a minute, struggling with a round, black thing that probably used to be a pancake.

“You’re an awful cook,” Ben scoffed as he joined her, doing his best not to laugh.

Wiping her greasy hand on her forehead, Rey glared at him with a smile that betrayed her own amusement. “Oh, shut up.”

Two days. He’d only known her for two days, yet here they were, falsely arguing over a burnt pancake and smiling at each other like two idiots hopelessly in love with each other. Was this the love Foreigner and every song had warned him about? Because if it was, he was more than sure he actually liked it. That, and pina-coladas. And making love at midnight, with a beautiful, radiant woman he hoped would stay in his life forever.

_Happy birthday, indeed._


	5. Nuttin' For Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once more for reading this truly ridiculous story we came up with, and enjoying it as much as we have!

Plenty of things had changed over the last year. Ben was no longer one lonely-ass motherfucker, with the exception of the occasional off night. And some things were very much the same. 

The fact, for instance, that Rey was still an awful cook. That first morning they had spent together, when she’d tried to make him birthday pancakes that had turned out to be more like festive discs of charcoal, he had assumed it was the fault of distraction. But as he began to spend more time with her, more mornings, and evenings, and afternoons, sometimes entire weekends, he’d figured out the truth. 

The truth was that Rey was not only an awful cook; she was quite possibly the worst cook he had ever met. The reason behind their fateful meeting at the Papa John’s had become clear—she actually lived on take-out and prepared meals most days. Until they’d started dating, and he’d figured this out, and he’d started cooking for her. And, when he was feeling ambitious and brave, trying to teach her how to cook as well. He thought, overall, that project was going well enough. She could now manage quite a few basic meals with little upset, which was nice, because her love of food verged on obsession.

But since today was Christmas, and since they had only yesterday finalized the paperwork for the apartment they—yes, they, together—would be moving in to next month, he was treating her. She didn’t know it yet, because she was still asleep, curled up in his bed and lightly snoring when he’d left her almost twenty minutes ago. At this rate he knew he had about five more before the smells of cinnamon, burnt sugar, and grilled pineapple roused her enough to make her curious, and maybe a few more after that before she decided to venture out to see what was afoot.

Soon there was a mountainous stack of waffles on the kitchenette table, flanked by plates of hot bacon and fluffy scrambled eggs, and the last of the butter and syrup; he really needed to make a grocery run. The coffee smelled divine, though he might have been biased. All that was missing was Rey. 

How had she not been enticed by now? For that matter, where was Como? It was a veritable miracle that he hadn’t yet tripped over the huge beast. He was usually an ever-present nuisance any time someone dared to set foot in the kitchen—which, Ben had to say, was a fucking olfactory symphony at the moment. There was no way it hadn’t crept down the hall and into his room. 

He considered being patient and letting Rey rouse herself, but he was not a patient person, and the idea that they’d be sitting down for lukewarm Christmas breakfast really chafed his ass. He would just go . . . gently wake her.

Coffee cup in hand (his patience only extended so far, and he’d needed something to power him through cooking), he shuffled back to his room and peered around the doorframe. Rey was sprawled on her back, one arm thrown out to the side, legs akimbo, tangled in the duvet. Her oversized flannel pajama top bared one pale shoulder, and the high bun she’d worn to bed had come out just enough to be rather adorably squashed to the left side of her head. She was snoring quietly, and she was no longer alone—Como was cuddled up to her, back pressed fast against her arm, equally sprawled, also snoring in short, staccato dog-snorts and getting fur all over Ben’s side of the bed.

It was beginning to dawn on Ben that his dog liked Rey more than he liked Ben.

“Comosus!” Ben hissed, gesturing wildly with his free hand. The dog responded with a low groan and a twitching ear. As Ben walked toward the bed, one brown eye followed his progress with little interest. “Como, _off_. You know you’re not allowed.”

He used to know he wasn’t allowed. This was the fourth time this month Ben had found him like this after he’d left Rey to sleep in a bit. When Como just licked his chops, Ben grimaced and got a hand under his collar to pull a bit. A bit, because it could be a challenge to get an eighty-pound dog to move when he didn’t want to—even an ordinarily very obedient one like Como. Fortunately, Como must have realized that he stood to miss out on a meal if he continued lazing in such a wanton fashion, and in the next moment he had gotten to his feet and propelled himself off the bed, landing heavily on the floor and trotting out of the room in a flash of wagging tail and clicking claws.

The bouncing of the mattress beneath the weight of a German Shepherd in pursuit of bacon was finally enough to wake Rey from whatever light slumber she’d still been clinging to. She scrubbed a hand over her face and yawned. “Oh, hey. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Ben smirked down at her as she tipped her head back a bit to sniff the air. “Fineapple.”

Rey’s face morphed into a grimace of feigned disgust at the pet name. He forgot when exactly he’d started calling her that, but he did know it started as a joke, and that her amused outrage the first time had compelled him to continue it.

“You monster,” she replied, though had started yawning again halfway through, so it just came out as a garbled waste of rejoinder. She patted the spot Como had recently vacated. “You made my cuddle buddy leave.”

If she gathered up all the fur Como had left behind, she could probably build an entirely new canine cuddle buddy. Ben had a better idea.

“You’re a terrible influence on him.” He put his mug down on the nightstand and crawled across the mattress to her (groaning inwardly at the decidedly doggy odor that puffed up into his face when the sheets shifted beneath him—at least it was a laundry day), throwing a leg over her and leaning his face close to hers. If it was something to snuggle with she was after, he could entertain her for long enough to convince her to get out of bed. “Can I interest you in a large, very hungry man as a replacement?”

“Mmn.” Her mouth twisted and she turned her face. “Coffee breath.”

“Can’t be worse than dog breath.” Ben gave a low growl and followed her mouth with his, pressing a rather sloppy kiss to her lips, which she indulged for a while and even encouraged by poking her tongue into his mouth—and then nipped his lip just before he drew back. He settled into a hunch, hands still planted at either side of her head. “You picked a bad day to not be a morning person.”

She reached up to lazily kiss his chin, then flopped onto her back, and arm folded behind her head as she finally looked him in the eye without giving the impression she was about to doze off mid-word. “I’m almost never a morning person.”

“Yeah, well. It’s a good time to try. I made you breakfast. I think you’ll like it.” He frowned and looked off toward the door. “It’s getting cold . . .”

That got her attention. Her eyes lit up and she grinned, still sleepy but a good deal more focused. “Any chance I can convince you to make breakfast in bed a thing today? I’ll even let you join me.”

“Wow, you’ll let me join you in my own bed?” He raised his eyebrows and sank down on top of her to bury his face at her neck, then rolled a bit, taking her with him until they were on their sides and face-to-face. “And with the food I made? That’s very generous.”

“Oh you know,” she managed over a low laugh, “it’s a special occasion.”

Her hand slid up over his shoulder and into his hair. Now he was in trouble. In the year since he had known her, he had only managed to resist that move six times. That may have been a generous estimate. When she kissed him again her face was still marked by pillow creases, and her mouth was tacky after her hours of sleep; but she tasted so sweet and lovely, and the small sigh she gave when he slid a thumb over her cheek was so perfectly _her_ , and fuck, another thirty seconds—fifteen—of this and he wasn’t going to be going anywhere.

At ten seconds, Ben managed to tear himself away from her—lazy morning sex was remarkably tempting, when he already had her pressed up against him like that, warm and loose-limbed, and who said he couldn’t just reheat everything in the oven afterward? But in the end she was the one to remind him of the food and prod him off her before he could even get her flannel top unbuttoned. 

Of course. Rey had nothing if not her priorities in order. He had brought this on himself, hadn’t he?

They didn’t have anything like a tray for this sort of thing (maybe something to add to the list of things for the new apartment when they’d settled in there), so he improvised—the largest baking pan he owned, which happened to be the 18-inch pizza pan Rey had bought him in February. They’d spent their first Valentine’s Day at his place, attempting to make homemade Hawaiian pizzas . . . the result had been iffy and a little burnt, and it resulted both of them getting covered in a lot of flour. Luckily, getting the flour off afterward was almost more fun than eating the pizza.

All cooking-related mishaps thus far averted today, Ben loaded the pan up with the feast he had prepared, set the coffee pot and two mugs at the center of it all. If he’d had some flowers or something he might have added them—there was a sprig of holly, though, leftover from tree shopping earlier in the month, and that was good enough. Some other asshole probably would have snapped a photo of it for their Instagram and uploaded it with some obnoxious hashtag-blessed hashtag-godblessuseveryone Christmas sentiments about family and loved ones and another year over . . . Ben just wished ardently that he had, at some point in his life, waited tables. The spread he had created was pretty but precarious, and as he carried the whole thing the short distance from the kitchen to the bedroom, he swore under his breath that Como had better not choose _that_ moment to run in front of his legs. 

Where indeed was his holiday spirit? Probably being strangled by the anxiety attendant to his budding realization: he was absolutely not going to manage to get through this day without asking Rey to marry him. 

He’d bought the ring last month; it was hidden in the back of his closet. It was cliche. He didn’t _want_ to do it on Christmas. But he’d gotten the idea, like an impulsive idiot, last night, just as she had started snoring. He’d rolled over to look at her, and the way the light from outside peeking around the shades hit her face had been so perfect, and he couldn’t help thinking he’d been stupid to wait as long as he had. 

So what if it was cliche? He just needed to fucking do it. Sometime. Later. Not now. For now, his biggest concern was how delighted Rey looked at the prospect of such a grand meal.

They saved the lazy morning sex for immediately after they’d finished breakfast, which was heavy and sweet and decadent—particularly the pineapple upside down waffles (yes, he knew waffles were the same on both sides and couldn’t really be _upside down_ , but Rey was too intent on picking the cherries out of each square to care). Their love-making was also on the heavy, sweet, and decadent side, and as they toweled off after a shower, Ben thought that all probably boded pretty well for his plans. 

He was still thinking so when they were in the living room, lounging on the sofa, Como passed out in front of the television after being plied with a very generous helping of bacon and Milk Bones. Ben glanced at the digital clock on the Blu-ray player—it was barely noon. Definitely too early for a nap, though sitting there with his head in Rey’s lap as she read something on her tablet made it awfully tempting.

Luckily, she nudged him in the ribs and looked up at him with the beginning of a smile quirking the right corner of her lips. “Hey, do you want to open gifts?”

“Um.” Opening gifts sounded like a great way to make Ben slip and propose to her before he’d found the right moment. Which he supposed would make it the right moment. God, why was he being such a— 

“Let me at least give you one of the things I got you,” she went on before he could get his head straight. “It’s sort of for both of us, actually.”

Ben shook his head and shrugged, or did his best to shrug lying on his back. “We can do it now, that’s fine.” Not really any use in waiting.

“Yes!” 

Rey dipped her face to kiss him, just on the tip of his nose, and barely gave him time to sit up before she leapt to her feet and shuffled across the room to the small tree they’d set up next to the corner bookshelf. He didn’t remember her being this excited last year. It was cute; and sort of weird. When she returned to the sofa with a wide, flat, somewhat floppy rectangular package in hand and set it on his lap, she looked no less eager. 

“It’s just something I saw and thought would be good to have for the new place . . .” she said as he tore a strip of yellow wrapping paper from the end. “It reminded me of you.”

The way she said it was ominous, though Ben also detected amusement. Whatever this was, it was probably some sort of gag gift. Except, when he ripped the last of the paper off and turned it over—he gave a short bark of laughter. It was a welcome mat. Three fat pineapples in a row on a black background, with the word WELCOME emblazoned just below in white. 

“I remember very, _very_ well when you taught me that pineapples mean welcome,” she commented with a grin. “Seems like a good thing to be reminded of, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Ben snorted back another laugh and held the mat up. He leaned over to kiss her neck. “Thank you. This is great. And the first thing we’ve gotten just for the new place, isn’t it?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh shit, you’re right! Well now we’ll just have to keep it around forever.”

Ben laughed as he took in the welcome mat, running his hand over it for a moment before he grinned at her and set it down. “Now it’s your turn to open something from _me_.” With that, he gave her a wink that had her giggling quietly and reached under the tree—which was adorned with far, far too many pineapple ornaments for the average household, but Ben and Rey weren’t exactly the average household—to pull out another present, wrapped in the hysterical white wrapping with metallic golden pineapples she’d found at Target the week before and excitedly shown him. “Merry Christmas, Rey,” he said, and she took it from him with a grin and began to unwrap it. 

Unwrapping their gifts didn’t take them very long. They’d both agreed not to get each other too much, and Ben had nearly tapped himself out buying the ring anyway. By the time they finished, they simply turned on one of those digital burning Yule logs on their TV and sat on the sofa talking. 

Well, it started out as talking, but soon enough Ben had crawled on top of Rey, and they were making out like dumb high schoolers fueled by hormones while Comosus occasionally barked at them. They somehow managed to ignore his cries for attention, though he was fully aware that at some point he ought to give his dog some more affection. It was Christmas after all, and the German Shepherd deserved the world in Ben’s eyes. 

Still he kissed her slowly, lazily, like he had all the time in the world, because if he were being honest, he did. He wasn’t going anywhere, and she certainly hadn’t said she wanted to leave. Their relationship had been love at second sight, and ever since the second time they’d run into each other, hell, maybe even since the first, Ben had been at least partially aware that they weren’t going to let go of one another anytime soon. They were always going to be forever, but they just needed to make it official. Technically, they didn’t _need_ to make it official, but Ben certainly didn’t mind the idea. It was just another way for him to put how much he loved her on display, and that wasn’t an opportunity that he was bound to pass up. 

One of his hands slowly drifted up the side of her waist, resting just next to her right breast as he deepened their already fairly passionate kiss. While they’d technically already had morning sex and his dog was in the same room facing their window and moping, he figured he could get away with a very PG-13 copping a feel. Rey seemed to notice this and broke away from the kiss to snicker while one of her own hands began to venture down his back toward his ass. Apparently two could, in fact, play at this game. 

“You minx,” he muttered, then he began to press kisses to the line of her jaw as he waited for her to respond. 

“You like it,” she protested innocently. As the hand on his ass gave him a slight squeeze, the hand still thoroughly entangled in his hair pulled him up a little, then her lips were on his, temporarily silencing anything he might’ve said in response. 

Ben moaned softly as he kissed her again, letting another several minutes of completely losing himself to her go by before his traitorous mind supplied him curious thoughts of just what time it was. He then pushed that thought aside, and resumed tangling his tongue with hers, but then his stomach decided to betray him as well. He wasn’t sure what could be considered more dramatic, “Et tu, Bruté?” or “Et tu, Ben’s stomach?,” which had decided that mid-kiss was the best time to mimic the mating call of a giant fucking whale or perhaps a cheap fart noise from a terrible sitcom.

The cursed sound caused Rey to pull away from him and look up with a quirked eyebrow and mischief in her eyes. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, dandy, just ignore . . . whatever the fuck what was,” he said, then he leaned down to kiss her again, when suddenly her hands pressed against his chest, stopping him. “What?”

A grin parted her lips, then she began tracing little circles on the muscles of his chest. “I think we ought to order an old favorite, don’t you? I know it’s not Friday, but you did just get me a hundred dollars worth of Papa John’s gift cards so . . .”

Ben fell in love with her a little more then, and as if it were on his body, he could feel the ring box in the back of his closet boring a hole into the pit of his stomach. He was definitely not going to survive this day without proposing to her. There was no way in hell. “Sounds perfect . . . _fineapple_.”

“I’ll kill you,” she said, then she tapped his chest. “Get off of me, you dickhead, I need to order the pizzas.”

“You sure you want to do it? I can handle it, if you want.”

Rey shook her head. “Nope, trust me, you’ll be glad it was me,” she said, sounding a little bit nervous as he rolled off of her, and she sat up on the sofa, turning away from him. “I think . . .”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t stop smiling as she got up and walked over to where she’d set down the gift cards earlier before she headed into their bedroom to grab her laptop. Ben sighed as he laid back against the couch, relishing the bliss that was life with Rey and wondering how he’d gotten lucky enough to call her his partner. Hopefully soon she’d be his fiancée, but he wasn’t going to depend on that too hard. Despite how in love they were, she may not have wanted to get married; after all, it wasn’t exactly something they’d talked about. They’d only just decided to move in together for god’s sake. Still, he had to try.

After a few seconds, he wandered into their bedroom to find Rey chewing on her nails as her hands hovered anxiously over the keyboard. “You okay?” he asked, concerned by the anxiety he could see in her eyes. It almost matched his own every time he’d caught his reflection thus far that day. 

She jumped at the sound of his voice, then she eagerly nodded. “Yeah! I’m fine!” Her voice was suspiciously high pitched, and it was as if he’d walked in on a teenage boy watching porn instead of his girlfriend ordering a pizza. Unless she actually was watching porn, in which case he would roast her into oblivion. With a slight smirk on his face, he made his way over to her, and she eagerly pressed her screen close to her chest. “Don’t look!”

His eyebrows shot straight for his hairline, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, now I’m really curious,” he replied. 

“Just trust me, you can’t look.”

“Rey, you know I love you, right? I wouldn’t judge you if you decided to watch porn without me—”

“Wait, you thought I was watching porn?” she asked, then she burst into obnoxious laughter, then set the laptop down beside her before standing up off of the bed and walking over to plant a brief, passionate kiss to his lips. “Ben, you’re such an idiot, I love you, but no, I’m just ordering the pizza . . . There’s just . . . I’m making it special, so that’s why you’re not allowed to look.” She held up a pinky to him. “Promise you won’t look?”

Giving her a confused stare, he slowly nodded, then wrapped his pinky around hers and brought her hand to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to it before he walked back out of the bedroom. He spared Rey one last glance back, feeling a sense of glee swell within his gut as he watched her blush and smile as she typed into it. A sense of anticipation hung in the air, though he sensed he was not supposed to know its meaning just yet as he walked back out of the bedroom and sat waiting on the sofa for her. 

It wasn’t until another fifteen minutes went by that she finally walked out of the bedroom breathing a little harder than she ought to have been for someone who had just been typing excitedly away the entire time. Whatever it was must’ve been exciting, but he couldn’t quite fathom what had caused her to be so breathless as she sat down beside him and pulled him in for another kiss that had their dog barking at them like his life depended on it. 

“Como, knock it off,” he told the dog as he pulled away ever so briefly from her, then he kissed her again, turning his thoughts back onto just how he would bring out the ring that day. Would he wait until the pizza came and propose while she was putting their slices on plates? What would he say to her? How in the hell would he pull it off? 

“Pizza will be here in ten,” she assured him. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he wrapped an arm around her waist as she tucked her head into his shoulder. “Keep kissing me until then? Or maybe we can find something on Netflix to ignore while . . . also kissing?”

“Comosus wouldn’t like that very much,” he pointed out, gesturing to the dog, who gave a whine as if on cue. 

Rey laughed, then she leaned over onto the table they kept in front of the sofa and turned on the TV. They settled on some old science fiction series, and she again melted into him as he kissed her softly. As she’d predicted, they almost completely ignored the show they’d put on, and focused their attention on one another. At one point toward the end, Como had come up onto the sofa with them, pressing his head into Ben’s lap, and they’d fawned over the dog that had effectively become their child—at some point he’d have to talk to her about adopting a sibling for his beloved German Shepherd, but that could probably wait until they were married—until he heard the sound of the pizza man knocking on their door. 

Like a madwoman, Rey scrambled off of the sofa, rushing to beat Ben to the door so that she was the one who greeted their pizza man—who was, predictably, Dopheld—instead of him. 

Ben didn’t make it to the front door until Dopheld was leaving, but he found it odd that he was leaning in close to his girlfriend, whispering something that sounded vaguely like “Good luck” into her ear before he was off down their hallway toward the elevator. 

“What was that about?” he asked curiously, watching as Rey made her way into the kitchen with a nervous smile on her face. She swallowed nervously, her knuckles nearly going white as she bent the pizza box from how tightly she was gripping it. Ben couldn’t help but notice she was also trembling a little bit in a way he hadn’t seen since the night they’d first made love, and he wondered if she was shaking for a similar reason.

“Hey.” He placed a hand over one of hers. “What’s going on? You’ve been acting weird today.”

Rey bit her lower lip as she looked at him, then she stepped aside, letting go of the box and gesturing for him to take her place. “You’re about to find out,” she promised him, then she smiled broadly at him. “Open it.”

Glancing at the box nervously, Ben returned her smile before he stepped in front of it and gripped the top in his fingers, throwing it open to reveal their usual Hawaiian pizza on the bottom—but on the interior of the top there was a message written in black Sharpie marker. Beneath the scent of the pizza, he could just barely make out the smell of the marker, but he barely noticed that as he took in just what the message said. 

“ _Yes, I like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain, I’m not much into health food, I’m into champagne, and most of all, I’m into you, this is super cheesy, but Ben Solo, I love you . . . Will you marry me?_ ”

Ben’s heart was racing in his chest as he read it, and suddenly everything made sense. All of Rey’s anxiety was explained in about two seconds as he processed that somehow, for all of his worries and fears about proposing that day, she’d beaten him to it. He fell in love with her even more for it. Shock filled his eyes as he felt Rey’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together as she knelt down on one knee and smiled up at him with suddenly misty eyes. Or maybe that was just his imagination, he couldn’t tell; everything was suddenly moving too fast and too slowly all at once.

Actually, it might have been his eyes that were misty if he really thought about it, but he didn’t want to. All he could think about was that the woman he loved was down on one knee before him, and there was a pizza box with a proposal written in cheap marker asking him if he wanted to spend his entire life with her. “Ben, I know you can read, but I had Dopheld write that ‘cause I wasn’t sure if I’d have the guts to do this out loud, so . . . basically . . . I’ve been in love with you since you sat down with me in the lobby last year and shared a Hawaiian with me, so . . . that’s too many so’s for one proposal . . .”

They both laughed nervously, and Ben nodded eagerly before he knelt down on the floor with her and took her face in his hands. “It’s the perfect amount, I promise,” he said, feeling his voice shake as he looked into her hazel eyes, which were definitely misting, threatening to let loose waterworks from how overwhelmed she was. 

“Is that a yes?” she asked softly, her voice quieter than he’d ever heard it.

Ben gave her another nod, then he rested his forehead against hers. “Yes, I want to marry you, too,” he told her, then they both let out relieved laughs, and he slowly leaned forward to kiss her again in celebration, when he remembered the ring waiting in the back of the closet. “Can you wait here a moment?” He pulled away, looking between her eyes to make sure she was okay with him leaving, then she gave him a little grin, and he pressed a brief kiss to her lips before he ran into their bedroom, leaping gracefully over Comosus, who barked as his dad rushed into the closet and shifted through all of the shit they kept in the back 

“Ben, what are you doing?” Rey asked from the kitchen. As he finally found the box, he gripped it firmly in his hands and grinned like a fool as he walked out of the bedroom, again leaping over a now alert Como as he made his way to her. The box remained firmly behind his back as he approached his now-standing fiancée, who watched him curiously as he approached. 

“I think you’ll be needing one of these,” he said, then opened the box and presented it to her, watching her face light up as she looked at the sparkling diamond. He’d gotten her something simple, a plain band with one large diamond at the center of two smaller ones, not wanting to overwhelm her with one of the larger, more expensive rings he’d found at the store. She reached into the box and pulled it out, inspecting the way it sparkled in the afternoon light before she slipped it smoothly on her ring finger. Much to his relief, it was a perfect fit, and she gasped slightly as she looked at it on her hand, a single tear streaking down her cheek as she looked back at him. 

“It’s perfect,” she promised him, then wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight embrace that he was quick to return, his hands covering the expanse of her back as he pulled her close. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said, nearly choking up completely as he pulled away just enough so that he was able to lean down and kiss her deeply. He slipped his hands up and wiped away the tear that had slowly made its way down her cheek as it hit him that they’d just gotten engaged. They’d just gotten engaged, and Ben . . . Ben already wanted to get married.

This called for celebration. Remembering the Hawaiian still waiting for them in its box, Ben was aware of his growling stomach again and pulled away just enough so that he could speak, his hands still on her. “Wanna eat that pizza?”

“I’d rather eat you.”

Regarding the grin blossoming in the corner of her mouth, Ben wondered if she was joking. It wasn’t unusual for her to tease him with such inappropriate puns; she’d even developed a passion for casually dropping those at work. Ben’s colleagues would often ask him why he’d suddenly turned as red as his tie, completely oblivious to the woman a few floors away from them sending the most outrageous texts his phone had ever carried. She was a minx, really—but his days at work had also never been so interesting.

Their co-workers hadn’t been long to notice, but his parents had probably been the fastest. In less than a week, he’d been called to his mother’s office and confronted with an unexpected interrogation until a wide smile appeared on her face at her son’s confession. He hadn’t exactly tried to hide it: true to his words, Ben had indeed placed a pineapple on Rey’s desk the Monday following their first weekend together, raising high suspicions among her colleagues who’d apparently seen him from the break room.

Dragging him back to the present, Rey crushed her lips on him slightly more intensely than before and, oh, maybe she wasn’t joking. Before he could even ask, she took a deep breath and jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist. Letting a soft gasp escape him, Ben quickly slid his arms under her thighs, trying not to fall as his legs accommodated to the sudden addition of weight. She’d done it a million times, yet he still wasn’t used to the easiness with which she could climb him. Truth be told, it didn’t bother him at all—it did things to him, in fact, tickling his stomach in the most indescribable way. 

“No pizza, then?”

The most adorable giggle crossed Rey’s lips. “No,” she stated with a shake of her head. “Bedroom,” she added after another kiss.

“Why—” Before he could finish, Ben felt something hit his leg, accompanied by the familiar bark of his dog whenever the whole world wasn’t looking at him as much as he’d like.

“Because,” Rey replied as she started trailing kisses down his neck, “your dog loves the sofa a little bit too much.”

He began to shiver at the feel of her lips, pulling him to grit his teeth in order to remain stable. “What about the doormat? It’s very welcoming.” He could’ve sworn he’d heard her chuckle, causing a few more shivers to run down his spine.

“Ben,” she repeated with an amused voice, “bedroom.”

In other circumstances, he would’ve played dumb a few more minutes just to have her beg him, but today was a special day. Resisting the urge to kiss her again, Ben walked to their bedroom, closely followed by a whining Comosus. Speeding up, he managed to reach the room before him, accompanied by the sound of Rey’s laugh in his ears.

“Sorry dude,” he whispered as he closed the door on his dog’s face. He could’ve spent a little more time reassuring Como that he wasn’t abandoning him, but the kisses Rey had started dropping again were insanely distracting.

“Bed?” she whispered against his skin, and he could only nod frantically while walking to said bed with such haste that he was almost expecting to trip on his way. Lucky for them, he landed on the mattress a few seconds later, firmly holding Rey against him as he sat.

Almost immediately, she shifted just enough to leave a small space between them, her legs on either side of him. Grinning mischievously, she kept staring at him as her hands glided from his shoulders to his chest, hastily pulling his shirt above his head. He would never get over the way she bit her lips every time her eyes wandered, or how she always took her time letting her fingers travel down his stomach on their way to his fly. Faster than usual, she unzipped it—and, of course, Ben was already as hard as a fucking pineapple. Or a week-stale Waffle House waffle. But maybe that was just his stomach speaking for him.

Despite their torrid first time, the first weeks of their relationship had been the most awkward, in terms of sex. Curious and eager to share her enthusiasm with him, Rey was the most spontaneous one. On the contrary, it had taken Ben a while to let her take care of him without feeling guilty or shameful every time he came on her. Every time, she’d insist; and every time, he’d refuse—until one day, seeing the desire in her eyes, he finally agreed and spent what was for sure one of the best nights he’d ever had. He was used to it, now; so used to it that he didn’t even protest when, a few seconds later, Rey was on her knees, dragging his jeans and boxers to his ankles with a small smile. Returning her smile, Ben let his fingers run through her hair as her head drew closer before his eyes closed firmly and he succumbed to the dizziness she was offering him.

“That was—crazy,” he murmured a few minutes later. Breathless and lying on the bed, he let an arm wrap around Rey’s waist as she joined his side, smiling devilishly.

“I wasn’t done,” she said while sliding a leg above him. In the blink of an eye, her whole body shifted and she was straddling him again.

How she’d managed to get rid of her clothes while being significantly busy was a mystery—yet there she was, fully naked and running her hands along his chest, dangerously approaching his lower abdomen. Not about to protest, Ben straightened up enough to catch her lips with his, running his hands along her sides. He could feel her thighs brush his cock, and by the smirk he could feel forming on her lips, knew it wasn’t an accident. She knew how to drive him crazy—but he knew how to drive her crazy too. Smiling as well, he pulled away and buried his face in the crook of her neck, gently sucking her skin just where he knew she was the most sensitive.

Her reaction wasn’t long in coming: instantly covered with shivers, she tightened her grip on his shoulder and instinctively tilted her head, giggling softly. “Stop!”

Doing as he was told, Ben looked up to her with the most innocent eyes. “Really?”

Still laughing, Rey shook her head. Slowly this time, she threw her hair over her other shoulder to grant him a better access. He immediately accepted and seconds later, his mouth was on her skin again.

It didn’t take long for Ben to drift to her cleavage, then to her breast. Despite her fingers hastily running to his back beckoning him to skip this part, he took his time, relishing in every muffled moan she tried to repress. When, finally, her nails dug deeper in his skin, Ben resumed to the easiest area and pressed a kiss under her ear.

She knew this signal. Letting out a satisfied sigh, she moved away from him only long enough to retrieve a condom from the nightstand drawer. She propped herself on her legs with an eager smile, rolled it down over his length, then slowly sank down on him.

It was now Ben’s turn to let out a sigh as she took him in, inch by inch. Moving her hips from time to time to adjust her position, Rey finally leaned down and crushed her mouth on his. She was fast; faster than usual, but also unable to get rid of the incredulous smile Ben could feel on his lips as well. It was contagious, really.

Had he been gifted with a wish, Ben would probably have asked for this moment to last forever. Just two sweaty idiots in love, causing his old mattress to creak under their combined weigh and hasty movements, giggling every now and then whenever the sounds of Como’s paws scratching the door echoed behind them. He was even about to crack a joke, when Rey suddenly tightened her grip on him and closed her eyes.

“Ben, I—”

Knowing what would follow, he quickly shut her up with a kiss and not even a second later, she arched her back and threw her head back, exposing her throat as a few words Ben couldn’t hear left her mouth. Even like that, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. It may even have been how he liked seeing her the most, right after Sunday mornings.

Slowly coming back to reality, Rey planted her hands on his chest for support and opened her eyes. Breathless, she looked at him as if she’d just noticed his presence and let one of her hands cup his cheek. Actually, maybe _that_ was how Ben liked seeing her the most: glowing, in his arms. It suddenly occurred to him that these moments would no longer be just moments, but become his life; _their_ life. Feeling his heart beat at an insane pace, Ben pulled her closer.

“Merry Christmas—” Before he could add anything, she put her index on his mouth, stopping him mid-sentence.

“Don’t ruin it,” she warned with flashing eyes.

It took Ben a moment to realize what she was referring to: that stupid nickname she loved to hate. Repressing a chuckle, he wrapped his fingers around hers and freed his mouth with a little smile. “Merry Christmas, _Mrs. Solo_.”

And by the smile on her lips and the sparks in her eyes, Ben knew she liked this new nickname. Smiling back at her, he happily accepted her kiss and let her push into him until they were nothing but a giggling, sweaty mess kissing on his bed on the holiest day of the year.


End file.
